


Death Wish

by TheSigyn



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Buffy Wishverse, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:35:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 191,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24157468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: “World is what it is. We fight and we die. Wishing doesn't change that. You can believe in a better world. I have to live in this one.”Anyanka’s wish was broken, but the world it created continues. Now Buffy must join forces with rebel vampires to create a world they can all stand to live in. But can Spike, Drusilla and Angel actually work with a hardened slayer, who would just as soon see them all dust?
Relationships: Angel/Drusilla (BtVS), Drusilla/Spike (BtVS), Spike/Buffy Summers
Comments: 190
Kudos: 165





	1. The World Continues

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Elysian Fields 2020 April Challenge month. Betaed by EllieRose101 and the exquisite bewildered, who worked like lighthouses to help me swim through this starry sea.  
> Banner by EllieRose101. New banners by nmcil, because I am a banner hog, I admit it. There are MANY now! I love them!  
> I feel like this story needs all kinds of disclaimers, because first of all, it doesn’t follow the challenge exactly. I was inspired when the challenge was mentioned in the EF discussion group on facebook, which was just talking “Wishverse!” rather than from the challenge as it’s stated on Elysian Fields. While it might go into the background of the Wishverse in flashbacks, it’s more a continuation so… it’s more challenge adjacent than it is challenge specific.  
> 

Buffy watched as the Master shifted so her crossbow bolt struck the boy vampire in leather instead of his own heart. She dashed forward, stake in hand, and in the melee that proceeded, her vampire companion -- Angel, as he’d called himself -- was dusted. She strode through to attack the boy in leather, as a redheaded vampire was staked against the wall. She dusted the leather-clad boy, only to find herself seized by the Master himself. She felt his hands around her head, the pressure of his strength, the weight of his body, and then the sharp twist as he snapped her neck. She felt the loss of connection to her body as it fell, saw with the last gasp of the synapses in her brain how the world dipped and yawed, and she knew she was dead. Her brain just didn’t know it… not quite yet. 

And then there was a roaring, and the screaming of angels, and the howling of demons, and the whooshing rush of air displaced, and the floor dropped out from under her again, only it wasn’t just the floor, it was the world, and it rumbled and tore and screamed at her and at everyone, and she shut her eyes and tensed her body and then it all stopped. She was standing at the entrance to the Master’s factory, Angel by her side, the Master on his dais, and everyone looked bewildered. 

Buffy didn’t have time to figure out what had happened. She was used to thinking fast. All she knew was A. she wasn’t dead, and B. she had a second chance to kill the Master. So rather than replay the same tune and fire her crossbow -- which apparently hadn’t worked the last time -- she grabbed her other asset, the tortured vampire, and threw it into the middle of the bunch of vampires, and then she ran the other direction. 

Angel looked terrified, and more than a little betrayed. “Buffy!” he called out. “Buffy!” 

She was already gone from there, climbing behind the old machinery, ducking beneath tanks and tubes, scrambling under the turn of the conveyor belt, to get behind the Master. 

“What’s going on?” the Master called out. 

“Who let out the puppy?” asked the redhead. 

“Xander,” the Master said to the boy at his side. “Go and get some answers from him.” 

The boy called Xander sauntered down the stairs to where Angel was gripped by two bumpy-faced thugs. Angel struggled, but he was weak. Xander reached out and touched his face. “What did you say?” Xander asked him. “Did you say… Buffy?” From under a machine she saw him punch Angel hard in the stomach. The tortured vampire made a sickly sound, but Buffy shrugged. She just needed a different angle, because she planned to shoot this Master vampire from behind this time, and Angel was a useful distraction. 

“Let me,” said the redheaded vampire. 

“After you, Willow,” Xander said. 

“Puppy, puppy. After all the time we spent together. To break out of your cage… to disobey your masters. What… were you… _thinking?_ ” 

Angel screamed. Buffy couldn’t see him from her position behind the dais, but she heard bones cracking. 

“Buffy. Buffy!” Angel called out, desperate. “I was thinking of Buffy!” 

“The slayer,” Xander said. “Why were you thinking of her?” 

“Oh, I can think of a reason,” Buffy snapped, and she popped up behind the dais with her crossbow. She loosed, and the Master screamed, the bolt in his chest. But he didn’t dust. What the…? Buffy leaped and threw a roundhouse kick at the bolt, driving it deeper. 

“No,” said the Master. “No!” 

The dust came slowly, trickling through his body, sliding down like sand through an hourglass, leaving his bones behind. They moved, as if unaware that their flesh was dust, and then sagged and clattered to the platform, the body completely disintegrated. 

Chaos erupted from the floor. “Master! Master!” Xander cried out.

A crowd emerged from the wooden cages at the back of the factory. The one who had staked Willow the first time, before the jump happened, he seemed to be the ringleader. “Fight!” he yelled. “Fight, _fight!_ ” 

“Come on!” Willow yelled at Xander. “We have to bolt.” 

“But our Master!” 

“Was weak,” Willow snapped. “Follow me, boys!” she yelled. 

Xander turned and kicked Angel aside. Angel fell to the ground, one hand bleeding, his neck red and bruised, a scratch on his cheek. Buffy took up her stake and attacked a vampire who thought to climb up after her instead of follow after Willow and Xander. The captives made a good show of fighting, but they never would have won if most of the vampires hadn’t been fleeing.

Buffy mopped up the stragglers. When she was finished the room was filled with dust, blood, and human bodies. Buffy sighed. Seemed like a typical day for her. 

The remaining living were helping the wounded. Angel lay on the ground, being tended by one of them. “What are you doing?” Buffy asked. 

“He needs help,” said the boy. He looked up at Buffy. “Are you Buffy? The slayer I heard about?” 

“Yeah.”

“I’m Oz. I work with Giles.” 

“Oh,” Buffy said. “I met him.” 

Angel gave a groan as Oz straightened one of his fingers. 

Buffy frowned. “Why are you helping him? He’s just a vampire like the others. So he got on their bad side. Doesn’t make him a good guy.” 

“This is Angel,” Oz said. “He used to help us, before the Master captured him.” 

“Why?” 

“Look, we can use all the help we can get, all right? Angel’s on our side. Can you help Larry with the wounded?” 

“Which one’s Larry?” Buffy asked. 

Oz gestured to a muscled young man who was trying to carry out a semi-conscious woman by himself.

“This really isn’t my forte,” Buffy said. “I’m more of a smash and dash kind of girl.” 

“You’re a human being, aren’t you?” Oz insisted. “If we don’t get these people out of here, the vampires could come back, and we’ll all be dead. This isn’t a protected place.”

“Yeah, well. I plan to break up this machine and then burn the place to the ground.”

“You can’t do that, the fire department is under curfew just the same as the police.” 

“Well, good. That means the place will have a good long time to burn. Unless you want the vampires coming back for their bloodsucking machine.” 

“I want to save people.” 

“Yeah, well, I don’t really give a damn about your Samaritan complex.” 

“Your job is to protect people!” 

“My job is to kill vampires,” Buffy said. 

“What are you killing the vampires for, then?” 

Buffy sighed heavily. “Fine. It’ll take a while to break this thing up. I’ll hang out and make sure no vampires come back to eat you all, but I’m not playing nurse.” 

“Fine. That’s fine,” Oz said. “Angel? Can you walk?” 

“Looks like I’m going to have to,” Angel said, glaring at Buffy. “Let’s go.” 

  
  


***

Giles didn’t know what to think of Buffy Summers. She was clearly powerful, but brusque and harsh. Giles had been wondering if he’d ever see her again when she came traipsing up and knocked on his door at three in the morning, alongside -- “Oz!” Giles stepped aside to allow them in. He had been awake, still guarding the vengeance demon, who didn’t look much like a demon any longer. The veins had left her face and her hair had tamed. She looked like a sullen young girl, who fumed when Buffy and the others came in. 

“Larry’s behind me,” Oz said. “He’s bringing a friend of ours.” 

Giles looked out the door. “Angel! Oh my god. We were sure you were dust.”

“Let me in,” Angel said. “Please, let me in.” 

Giles hesitated. He had resisted giving Angel an invite to his flat. At first he wasn’t sure if he could trust the besouled vampire, and then it was just easier to meet at the library, anyway. But this was an exceptional circumstance. And he could always disinvite Angel tomorrow. 

“All right. You may come in, Angel. But just for tonight.” He was fairly sure he’d still have to perform a disinvite spell, but the stipulation wasn’t lost on Angel. The vampire nodded, his face stoic. He didn’t look well. 

“Don’t worry. I got a stake on standby,” Buffy said, twirling it in her hand. 

“You survived,” Giles said to Angel and Larry. “And Oz, both of you. I’m so glad.” He looked on Buffy. “And you, Miss Summers. What happened?” 

“What happened is I killed your Master, that’s what happened,” she said. 

“Is this true?” Giles asked Oz. 

“It’s true,” Oz said. “But Willow and Xander, they got away, taking most of the others with them.” 

Giles glared at her. “You let Willow and Xander escape?” 

“So what?” Buffy said. “They’re just henchmen, right?” 

“Wrong,” Giles said. “Xander is one of the most volatile of the Master’s followers. He’s vicious, deadly, audacious--”

“He was turned by the Master’s own favorite,” Angel said. “My own sire, a vampire called Darla.” 

“So that makes you Xander’s brother?” Buffy asked, unimpressed. 

“But Xander’s nothing compared to Willow,” Giles said, the pain still raw. 

“What’s so great about this Willow?” 

“She’s the cruelest, harshest, and most inventive torturer in the Master’s ranks,” Angel said. “And believe me, I know torture. She’s gifted at it.”

“But more than that,” Giles said. “Willow is also a highly gifted sorceress. She was turned by the Master himself, after Xander betrayed her gifts to him. Willow was my own pupil….” He stopped, fazed by emotion he didn’t want to betray. He swallowed and continued. “It was after she was taken that I formed this squad, and decided to face the vampires on their own turf. I knew that I could not leave things as they are. Willow is my responsibility… and we cannot consider our job done here until she is vanquished.” 

“So… you’re telling me we still have a nasty to kill?” Buffy said. “Well, where would this Willow be, so I can go after her?” 

“You’re not just going to dive in half-cocked again, are you?” Angel asked. 

“Why not? It worked, didn’t it?” 

“It worked the second time,” Angel snapped. “If my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, I was dusted the first.” 

“You saw that, too?” Buffy asked. “I thought the vision was just me.” 

“What vision?” Giles asked. Something strange had happened to him too, but he’d thought it was just a side-effect of damaging the amulet, some kind of dizziness caused by the release of demonic magics. 

“I glitched,” Buffy said with a shrug. “I get stuff sometimes, impressions, prophetic dreams, weird visions if I’m tired or drugged up. It’s the slayer thing. The first time I tried to shoot your Master, I missed.” 

“You missed, and everything happened differently,” Larry said. “It happened to me, too.”

“And me,” Oz admitted. “Buffy died. The Master lived. But we did get Willow and Xander the first time,” Oz said. “Might have been a fair trade.” 

“So, wait a minute,” Giles said. “You actually had two completely different scenarios happen at once?” 

“Of course they did,” said Anyanka from the corner. “What did you think was going to happen?” 

Everyone turned to look at her. “What’s with this bitch?” Buffy said with a sneer to her scarred lip. 

“This… bitch, as you call her, is the demon Anyanka,” Giles said. “I destroyed her amulet in the expectation that this world would be reset into another one. It….” He sighed and removed his glasses to clean them. “It didn’t work.”

“Of course it didn’t work,” Anyanka muttered. “Don’t you know anything about temporal dimensional bifurcation?” 

“No,” Giles said, though the words made a horrible kind of sense. He sat back on his desk and looked down at her. “Why don’t you explain it to us?” 

“Someone asked me for a wish,” Anyanka said. “She wished that you, Buffy Summers, had never come to Sunnydale. I granted that wish and created an alternate timeline. This… _man_ ,” she said, with enough scorn in the word to flay flesh, “destroyed my amulet, restoring the original timeline. But this was too large a dimension. It had already established itself, its own rules, its own history. So yeah, you may have restored the timeline to the original for some other Sunnydale on some other planet. But this one? This one will stay just as it is.” She shrugged. “That glitch you describe was just the timeline readjusting itself around the new dimension.” 

“I created a new dimension?” Giles asked. 

“You did, Cordelia did, her ex-boyfriend did. Don’t look at me like I’m crazy, it happens all the time. New dimensions are born from big decisions every day. They’re born, they die, they meld into each other, they all turn to shrimp. You just don’t perceive them because you’re human.” She sighed. “And unfortunately, now I’m one, too.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You destroyed my amulet!” Anyanka snapped at Giles. “You stripped me of my powers! I am helpless! I’m… I’m powerless,” she realized. “Oh, hells. Oh, hells, I’m human. I’m _human!_ ” She buried her face in her hands and shuddered. 

Buffy raised her eyebrow at the crying ex-demon, then shrugged. “Okie-dokie, well, that was interesting. So, there’s no magic bullet for solving everything. What else is new?” She tossed herself off the wall she’d been leaning against. “I’m going to go find a hotel.”

“There are none,” Larry said. “Sorry, but they’ve all shut down after the vampires closed in. There are some bed and breakfasts in private homes, but they’re all locked down until sunrise.”

She snorted. “So, I guess that means I sleep in my car.” 

“You can’t sleep in a car,” Oz said. 

“It’s too dangerous. That’s not protected by an invite,” Larry said. 

“Then I guess I’ll just leave,” Buffy snapped. “Unless you plan on imprisoning me here.” 

“You’re just going?” Angel asked. “But you’re supposed to stay here. To save us.” 

“I’m _supposed_ to do a lot of things,” Buffy snapped at Angel. “Not the least of which is kill vampires, like you. And who are you to tell me what I’m _supposed_ to do, anyway? You have some mystical insight into what it is to be a slayer?” 

Angel struggled to his feet. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he snarled. “I was sent to help you to restore the balance by someone working on behalf of the Powers That Be. I have seen the Pergamum Codex. I know all about you.” 

Buffy blinked at him steadily. “You know nothing about me. You’re just some creepy vampire. Someone remind me why I haven’t staked him yet?” 

“Angel has been an asset,” Giles said patiently. “And the Pergamum Codex is known to be… complex in its assertations. And if destiny really has been -- bifurcated, as you say, Anyanka, than it’s unlikely that we have any idea what’s going to happen next.”

What happened next was a crashing peal of thunder. It was so loud it shook the house, and made pictures fall off the walls. Another peal echoed outside, then another, then another. Larry went to the window and looked out. “Uh… guys?” he said. He opened the front door and stared up at the sky from the courtyard. Giles and the others followed him out. 

Clouds swirled in the darkness, teeming and building, moving perceptibly like milk in coffee. In the center of the swirling storm something was spelled out in crackles of lightning in the sky. At first Giles couldn’t read it, it looked like an infinity sign with a caron over it, followed by some squares, then something indecipherable, and then… oh. The orientation was pointed in a different direction than Giles’s courtyard. He shifted his head, though by that time he already knew what it said. 

BUFFY DIES

Then the lightning crashed again, and a warm rain started to fall. Giles held his hand up to it, and blinked. The rain seemed to be black… no. No, it was red. Blood was falling from the skies beneath a fiery message of death. “Get inside, everyone, get inside.” He pushed them into the flat. 

Buffy shoved him aside and stared up at the sky, a stake in her hand, her face hard and angry. 

“Miss Summers!” Giles called back at her. “Miss Summers, please, come inside! We don’t know what else this rain might do.” 

“I know what it does,” Buffy said, her face dripping red. She glared at the message and then turned back to face Giles, unfazed by the blood streaming down her face. “This declares a fucking war.” 

  
  


***

Spike leaned back against his easy chair and popped the top off a bottle of bitter. Drusilla was singing to herself as she set the table, the porcelain clinking as she placed each piece. “One, two, and three and four. One and two and three and four. Four and three and two and one and two and four….” Around and around and around she went. Spike tried to tune her out. She didn’t seem to need attention just at the moment. Finally he looked her over. “Something important, love?” 

“We’re having visitors,” she whispered. “Must set the tea.” 

The table had mismatched tea sets and at least sixteen plates, but she was collecting them in four groups on the table. They didn’t eat a lot of human food -- usually when Spike wanted some he was out and had it made for him, so they didn’t really need the tea service. “Who’s coming, Dru?” 

“The last of the Aurelians,” Drusilla whispered. 

Spike scoffed. “As if the Master would deign to venture above ground for us. Doesn’t he have enough of a smorgasbord in his own territory? Why would he bother with us?” 

“He’s not going to,” Drusilla said. “He’ll never bother with us again.” And her dreamy smile took on a predatory gleam, and she started to chuckle, and then she started to laugh, and Spike got up just in case her laughter took her to a bad place, but instead she just started humming to herself, as if she was overjoyed, and she hugged herself tightly, so Spike hugged her instead, just in case she needed someone to hold her together, and then she gasped and turned away. “You’d best put on your armor, my pet,” she told him. “They’re coming.” 

Spike regarded her, then went to put on his coat. 

It didn’t take long for someone to show up at Crawford Street. And to Spike’s annoyance, it wasn’t just two or even four people. The one thing Spike hated about this lair were the number of windows on the ground floor. It was sturdy, fireproof, luxurious, plenty of space for him and Drusilla, and even had a jasmine garden for her to dance in in the moonlight, but those windows made it dangerous during the day, and difficult to cover, even when he had a full contingent of minions. With the Master making his big announcement tonight on starting up his ruddy machine, Spike had been down to just five. And apparently, they weren’t real big on blocking what they perceived to be allies. 

Dozens of vampires crowded into the main hall, pushing through the windows, breaking some of them, trampling the jasmine roots. “Oi!” Spike snapped as the crowd started to thicken. “Just having a spot of bitter, mates, there’s no need to roust the ghosts.” 

“Spike,” came a creamy voice from through the throng. A sauntering, seductive figure came pushing through the vampires and approached him. “Spike, Spike, Spike. You weren’t at the opening tonight,” Willow said. 

Xander was at her left shoulder, bristling like a porcupine. 

“Of course I wasn’t,” Spike said. “You think I want to watch while your Master guts the very center out of everything I hold dear?”

“The machine was a technological marvel,” Xander said loyally. 

“The machine steals the death from us and gives it to something that won’t feel it,” Spike said. “Why would I want to watch the abdication of our race?” 

“Spike, Spike, Spike,” Willow said. “You lack vision. The Master knew that. But it doesn’t matter. We need your help.” 

Spike tilted his head back. Drusilla was surrounded, and not by his own people. That always made him nervous. She wasn’t as strong as she used to be. “Well,” he said, trying quietly to go in Dru’s direction. “Always knew you’d come crawling to me. The Master decide he needed his best lieutenant by his side, did he? I’ll tell him what I told him before. If he wants me to work for him I need autonomy and a fair bit of dosh. I don’t play for free. And don’t bring a hero grunt work. If all he needs is a minion, he’s got plenty of those. I’m a warrior, not a—”

“Bored now,” Willow said abruptly. “Shut. Mouth. Yours.” She reached forward and caressed Spike’s cheek, her nails sliding along until they reached his jugular. “You see,” she said, “it doesn’t matter anymore, your petty little feud with the Master.” 

“We weren’t feuding,” Spike said, sliding his head away from her caress. She’d made a play for him just after she was turned, when she was snatching up any body she came across, from Xander to Drusilla herself. Spike had seen her off, and kept her off Dru, too, and Willow had always resented it. She felt any body she wanted was hers to toy with, and the fact that Spike didn’t agree had irked her. “The Master and I just didn’t agree, that’s all. He kept his territory. I wasn’t making a claim for it.” 

“Ah, but you see… I am. Boys?” She called softly, like a little girl. “Bring in the athame.” 

One of her minions brought in a double sided, beautifully decorated blade with a crescent moon on the hilt. 

“What’s that about?” 

“You weren’t at the opening ceremony tonight, Spike, so you missed some crucial bits of news. First off, there’s a slayer in town.” 

Spike’s ears pricked. “A slayer? Where?” 

“Second, she took my puppy.” 

Spike tightened his jaw. Of course Angel had to be involved in this somehow. 

“Third, she killed our Master.” 

“She what?” 

“I knew, I knew it,” Drusilla crowed from the side. “I knew the reign was over. And you’re coming for tea, for tea?” she asked Willow. “I brought cups.” 

Willow glanced at the tea table. “How convenient. Spike, do you know anything about slayers?” 

Spike chuckled. His reputation was known. “May have done one or two in my day.” 

“Oh, that’s _right,_ ” Willow said. “Well, the trouble is, you can’t catch them if you can’t find them, and this one… this one’s already… _irritated_ me. So I thought I’d perform a little spell just so she knows she hasn’t beaten me yet.” 

“I’m sure there are better ways of managing that. I find killing them helps.” 

“Yes, yes, we’ll get to that,” Willow said, and sauntered over to the table. She took up one of Dru’s teacups and twirled it in her hand. “The trouble is, people are scared, Spike. The vampires are scared. So many of them fled tonight. Do you realize that? _Fled?_ Just ran away, when I specifically told them to follow me. You don’t think that’s right, do you, Spike?” 

“Well, they lost their Master,” Spike said. “My boys always get scared if they think I’m not coming back. Just beat them up a little, they fall back in line.” 

“You don’t understand, Spike. I told them to follow _me_. And that’s what I need them to do. All of them. All of the vampires and demons in Sunnydale. The Master is gone now, and you must understand. They’re going to follow _me_ now.” 

Spike saw where this was going. “Including….” 

“Yes, Spike. Including you.” She set the teacup down on the table with a little smile, and waggled her shoulders innocently. “See, I never understood why the Master let you get away with defying him.” 

“We’re his bloodline,” Spike said. “The bloke was sentimental like that.” 

“Yes, it was an impressive bloodline. I will give you that. I’m rather fond of it,” Willow said. “Which is why I’m coming to you, Spike. I have a way to let everyone in Sunnydale know that the slayer hasn’t beaten me. That they have nothing to fear from her. But I need your help to do it.” 

This was territory Spike was familiar with. “I get it. I can do your slayer for you, if you like. But the same deal still stands. Autonomy, and a bit of dosh. Might use some of your minions, if we want to lay a trap, but for the most part I do the slayer slaying on my own. I--”

“I don’t want you to kill the slayer, Spike. I just want to let everyone know that she’s going to die. _Everyone_. But to do that, I need a little bit of your blood.” 

Spike stopped. “My blood?” 

“Both of you. You and Dru, the last living descendants of the Master, apart from me and Xander here. I need the essence of four of the Master’s bloodline to complete this spell.” She stopped. “Well, actually, I need the essence of four of _my_ bloodline, since it is my magic.” She grinned again. “You’ll help, won’t you?” 

“No,” Spike said. “You can’t take blood from Drusilla, I won’t let you.” 

Willow gave a single laugh. “Heh. Really.” She snapped her fingers, and several minions stood between him and Dru. “Try and stop me.” 

Spike tried. Oh, how he tried. It took only one to hold Dru, while Spike lost count of the number of bumpy faced minions he kicked aside and punched down. In the end he was defeated by sheer numbers. Someone -- he thought it was Xander -- clocked him on the head with some kind of makeshift club, and he went woozy. When his eyes cleared he found himself held by the arms and legs, while Drusilla’s wrist was slit with the athame. 

“Stop this!” Spike yelled. “Take mine! She’s too weak to give blood, not for some ruddy spell!” 

Drusilla sang darkly while the blood pooled into one of the teacups. Willow carried it and poured it into a silver chalice. “Your turn,” she said to Spike. 

Spike struggled. Drusilla was still bleeding, they were doing nothing to staunch the flow from her wrist. They couldn’t get to his wrists as he struggled and fought, and they couldn’t just dust him, because then they wouldn’t get their blood. So it didn’t surprise him when Willow held the athame up to his neck and cut at his jugular. The blood spurted, and she caught it with a giggle of delight. “You give so much so easily,” she said. “You really are a strong one. I see why the Master wanted to keep you around. But I’m not so sentimental as he was. So, you know, you might want to show me some deference.” 

“Get the fuck off me, you sodding pigs!” Spike grunted, struggling against his captors. “Just let me go to Dru. Let me stop the bleeding, for fuck’s sake!” 

Willow didn’t show any sign of hearing. She raised an eyebrow at Xander, who came up and offered his wrist docilely. “Here you go, my sweet,” he said, and she kissed him before slicing him open. She caught the blood in the chalice and then cut her own wrist. She started chanting in Latin as her blood trickled in. “Quater quator sanguinern,” she said, “pluet super eam omnes.” He wasn’t sure she’d gotten the declensions right on that. 

“Blood for blood,” Drusilla whispered weakly, hanging from her captor’s arms, her legs buckled, “hang it ‘round. Blood for blood, until we’re bound.” 

“Let me go,” Spike begged. “ _Please_ , let me go! She’s still bleeding!” So was he, but he barely registered that.

Willow chanted over her chalice, a wicked delight on her face, and then she stomped. “Someone get me a pencil,” she said. Someone handed her something, and Willow turned to the tea table. She swept it clean, tea cups and plates crashing to the floor. Then she wrote something on the wood, dipping her pencil in the blood before she drew. As she passed each stroke, thunder echoed outside and lighting flashed out the windows. When she finished she took the chalice and slowly dripped the blood over the words, her hand shaking as she dribbled his and Dru’s precious blood out like some bloody Jackson Pollock painting. 

The thunder roared again, and Willow cried out. She screamed, going to her knees, and Xander went to her, concern clear on his face. “Willow?” 

“No! It’s fine!” Willow shrieked. “I just… I just need… more… power… ahh!” She reached out with her arms. Dark tendrils of vampirically tainted magic curled around the assembled minions. Several went down to their knees, including Xander. A tendril reached for Spike, but he wasn’t having it. He jerked his arm, pulling the minion on his left into the line of smoke-like magic. The minion fell, and Spike yanked his arm free. He bashed one minion’s head against another, threw a third at a fourth, and then took a leap over another one to land beside the vampire holding Drusilla. He was easy to dispatch. But then he had a half-conscious Dru to deal with, and he had to get out of this room with the strength-sucking magic tendrils. “Come on, pet,” he whispered to her. “Time to make a getaway.” 

He ran down the side hall and toward the garage, unsure if he was being followed. If he was, they weren’t making a very good job of it. He thought it more likely that the minions were largely concerned with having their power sucked by a vampiric sorceress. He slammed the door to the garage shut behind him anyway, and then threw Drusilla into the front seat of his Desoto, sliding in quickly beside her. He started the engine and drove flat out, crashing through the garage doors and out into the rain. 

The rain outside his windscreen was dark, and obscured his vision almost immediately. What the hell? Was that blood? He opened his window a bit and sniffed. It was blood. Vampire blood. Extremely potent vampire blood. He’d never seen a spell this powerful, or this destructive. Potentially it had the power to turn any wounded human outside into a vampire. Sunnydale had a pretty strong curfew in place, so it was unlikely to actually manage to change much, and looking at the cloud pattern it seemed to be local to Sunnydale. Still, a city-wide spell was no small feat. 

In the center of the spell were words sketched in lightning, though they faded and died even as Spike was reading them. BUFFY DIES. Subtle, that. Well, Willow had gotten what she wanted all right. She’d made her play to become the next big bad in Sunnydale. She’d made a huge show of power, and reassured any stragglers who were frightened of the slayer that she wasn’t long for this world. And she’d taken out the only show of resistance within the Master’s territory, namely himself and Drusilla. 

Spike pulled over and ripped pieces off his t-shirt, using them to bandage Drusilla’s wrist and his own throat. He had no way of knowing how much blood she had lost, but it had been enough to drive her down further than he’d ever seen her. She could hardly keep her eyes open.

The prudent thing would be to get the hell out of Dodge, but Spike knew he couldn’t do that. Drusilla’s proximity to the hellmouth was the only thing that had kept her as strong as she had been this last year. Her pervasive weakness increasing, Drusilla’s declining health had kept them pretty much married to Sunnydale. He’d kept on good enough terms with the Master that he’d allowed them their own small territory and didn’t begrudge them their handful of protective minions. The Master’s death, and Willow’s ascension, that was going to end all of that. 

Windshield wipers going full, barely keeping up with the smearing vampire blood, Spike drove the Desoto downtown and pulled into the parking lot of the highschool, as close as he could get to the hellmouth. He parked in the most obscure parking place and waited for the rain to stop. He knew Willow couldn’t keep this up for long, and he was right. Eventually the rain slowed, and then stopped, and Spike carried Dru to the nearest entrance, kicking the door open. Invite clauses didn’t work on public schools, thank the devil. 

He walked in, his boots smearing blood on the floor, and found his way to the basement. The hellmouth itself had been hastily closed off, probably by that librarian, and the place was surrounded by crosses. Spike grunted and turned aside, finding his way into what turned out to be a boiler room. Only one entrance, but defensible, and near enough to the hellmouth that he could feel its invigorating miasma trickling into his blood. He didn’t dare take Dru anywhere else. He supposed there were other rifts and hellmouths around the planet, but Sunnydale’s was the largest, and the one most likely to keep Dru alive. So until he had a better plan for his dark princess, for now, they were both stuck. 


	2. What's Fate?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some disturbing chapter notes for this story. Buffy has been subjected to dubcon underage sex and taken drugs. None of this happens here, but is referenced.

Buffy rarely spent time dwelling on whether her life was complicated. Sometimes it seemed extraordinarily simple. Find vampires and other demon nasties, stake them, rinse, repeat. She had fun with it. She had a purpose. Though the truth was, most of that was distracting from what she didn’t have.

When Buffy did think about it, the turning point in her life didn’t actually seem to be when she was chosen. Her early life had all been playing Power Girl games and imagining killing nasties. When the prophetic slayer dreams had started when she was eleven, when she remembered the lives of earlier slayers, that had been preparing her for when the slayer powers had finally activated in her. And when the demons started to attack, when she had to slay the master vampire Lothos in LA, it had just seemed like an extension of her true self. This was who she was. Of course it was. It had always been. 

No, the change really happened not with her first watcher Merrick and the awakening of her slayer powers. The shift had really happened when her parents got divorced. 

Maybe it had been her fault. Maybe her parents dealing with a super-strong demon-killing freakazoid of a daughter had been what tipped their struggling marriage over the cliff. Buffy rather thought it was. Mainly because her father had told her it was. 

When her parents had divorced and Hank had won custody, Buffy hadn’t expected things to change, but they did. Hank moved to New York rather than have anything to do with Buffy’s mother, forcing Joyce to pay exorbitant travel fees if she wanted to spend any time with her daughter. Joyce had stayed in LA and tried to call her daughter on the weekends, but Buffy didn’t have time to talk to her mother on the phone, any more than she had time to spend with her dad. There were demons to slay. And her new watcher found them for her. 

Her second watcher came to find her in New York not two days after she moved there. His name was Naxon. He was in his forties, sandy haired, much more prim and hard nosed than Merrick had ever been. She’d been able to laugh with Merrick. Naxon just told her she didn’t have time for that sort of frivolity. It was he who had taught her her job was not to save humans, but to kill vampires. Naxon sent her to the tunnels in New York, to live among what were termed the Mole People, or the homeless who had retreated there and formed their own community. This was because the Mole People were the vampires best food source. She was to stake the place out, watch a feeding, and follow the vampire back to its lair, hopefully to get more of them. 

The Mole People were largely kindly, crazy, many of them addicts, most of them mentally wacked in some way or another. It was really, really hard just sitting there and letting them die. But that was what Naxon had told her to do, so she did it. She found no less than seven nests of vampires that way. So what if it meant she lost a dozen of her friends as she used them, without their knowing it, for bait? When some of them offered her drugs, she accepted. She was cold, tired, frightened, and wracked with guilt. If they wanted to party with her, who was she to refuse? 

Drugs made the guilt a little less heavy. 

Her father was furious whenever she went on one of her excursions to the tunnels, which could take up to a week. She’d come back dirty, disheveled, sometimes with blood on her, occasionally still high. Finally Hank lost his temper and told Buffy if she didn’t shape up, she could ship out. That was okay with Naxon, who took her into his apartment and got her a wardrobe as a baby hooker, to stake out more vampires who were stalking the city prostitutes at night. 

This was harder than the tunnels. The street hookers didn’t trust a new girl in their midst until after she’d walked the streets with them for some time. It was hard to play the hooker without actually performing, so she’d started giving oral -- with condoms -- to a few johns on the street. It was an ugly business, but she did catch a few vampires that way, and hey, bonus, she got a little money, since Naxon didn’t give her any pocket money or anything. He did supply her with food and a bed though, which meant most of the blow job money she spent on pot and the occasional hit of molly. 

But Naxon wasn’t careful. That was what Buffy figured, anyway. What she knew was that the Watchers gave him access to the city police, and there he’d research unexplained deaths. After he researched he’d often follow up with wherever most disappearances occurred. This was how he’d known about the missing people in the tunnels and on the streets. 

One night he just didn’t come home. Buffy waited for him, and waited, and she checked the streets, asked questions, followed vampires, but he just didn’t come. When the food started to run out in the apartment she’d called the Watchers, and they said they’d send someone else. 

That was how she got Carter. Carter was young, ambitious, a jetsetter. Raven haired and saturnine of face, and he had no patience with Naxon’s underground nest hunts. “They’re not worth your time,” he told her. “What are they killing? The dregs of humanity. No one worth your energies. There’s more important hunts you could be on.” And he took her to Nepal, to slay a nest that had taken over a monastery there, and he took her to Jamaica, to hunt down a master demon who was raising a horde of zombies, and he took her to Peru, to stalk an ancient jaguar demon that had lived for hundreds of years, and when he took her to his bed, it was just part of the whirlwind of jet planes and hotel rooms and clubs that he’d been taking her to, and it didn’t matter that she had always hated him, he was her Watcher, and he watched everything she did, and sometimes you have to use sex to hunt your prey, and he made sure she knew what she was doing. 

He was murdered in Boston by a master vampire who looked like a pig, a big gun he’d wanted her to kill called Kakistos. A man who looked for big prizes often got bit by them in the end. Buffy staked the vampire and his minions, washed off the blood, and called the Watchers, and they sent her Monica Stiles. 

Stiles was a dream, the mother she’d never had. Stiles made her doctors appointments and got her a birth control implant, so if she had to seduce someone on the job she’d have no risk of getting pregnant. Stiles made her chicken dinners and checked her nutrition charts, making sure Buffy was eating properly. Stiles bought her sturdy clothing and sensible athletic shoes, and trained her in how to meditate so she could control her powers. Stiles told her she loved her and that she was immensely proud of her. Stiles was everything Buffy had ever wanted in a watcher. And then suddenly Stiles drugged her, stripped her of her powers, and locked her in a factory basement with a vampire strong enough to rend her limb from limb. 

Buffy survived only by the skin of her teeth, literally, biting off pieces of the monster and suffering numerous broken bones in the process. The vampire tore her lip, leaving her with a scar she’d have the rest of her life. When she was carried out of the basement by the chief Watcher Travers, he explained it was a test known as the Cruciamentum planned when a slayer turned eighteen, and that Buffy had passed with flying colors, and Stiles was to be commended for her careful training. Stiles congratulated Buffy and said it was only a great slayer who survived her Cruciamentum, and she was impressed that she survived, and she was proud of her. And Buffy didn’t even bother to tell them that her actual eighteenth birthday wasn’t for another three months, because really, it didn’t matter. Instead Buffy waited patiently for her bones to heal, and her body to strengthen, and her mind to be controlled, and then she had Stiles take her out for a training session to a suck house Buffy had known about for a few months, and per the agreement Buffy had made with them the suckers drained the Watcher dry and left her body in a dumpster. 

Buffy felt a little bad about that, and she didn’t really want Travers finding out about her revenge, so she staked the whole nest of suckers the next night, just to be on the safe side. 

Her current watcher was Wesley. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce was a baby Watcher, still in his twenties, a complete pushover, and Buffy largely ignored him. He was harmless, but ineffectual. He’d only gotten the job through his father, who was some uppity-up in the Watchers Council. He’d centered her in Cleveland, where there was a small hellmouth, and occasionally sent her on out-of-town trips, but unlike Carter he sent her on her own. He didn’t seem to want her pussy, and she wasn’t going to give him the chance to poison her like Stiles had. She insisted on a stipend, had her own apartment, and stole when she ran out of funds. 

Buffy knew how to manage on her own as the slayer by this time. She didn’t feel like a girl anymore. She didn’t feel like a human anymore. She was a weapon, owned and wielded by the Watchers Council, and they didn’t treat their tools kindly. She didn’t expect kindness from anyone. So Giles’s insistence that she take the bed while they waited for dawn only filled Buffy with suspicion. She took it, but she didn’t sleep, instead drifting into a meditation while she expected something to jump out at her. She usually only slept during the day, when it was marginally safer. She wanted to talk about the next step -- tracking this Willow -- but the others all looked so exhausted, even the tortured vampire, so she settled down and let herself rest. 

The boys all hung out downstairs on couches and armchairs. Giles locked Anyanka in the bathroom, for lack of anything better to do with her. When dawn came they had to let her out so everyone could use the facilities. She complained loudly that the bathtub was uncomfortable, and that they had no right to keep her prisoner. 

Buffy stretched and sat up, rising from her meditation. “I can always just kill her,” she said, looking down over the railing of the loft. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about it.” 

Giles looked troubled. “I don’t think there’s any need for that,” he said. “Anyanka is without powers and harmless.”

“A demon is a demon,” Buffy said, coming down the stairs. 

“I’m human now,” Anyanka said. “What have you got against me?” 

“If I understand it correctly, you fucked me over for years,” Buffy said. “Am I right?” 

Anyanka looked nervous. “Well, things were different,” she said. “Better? Uh….” 

“Buffy was meant to come here,” Angel said. “At least that was how I understood her destiny.” 

Buffy glared. What did he know of her destiny? 

“If your destiny was circumvented, it’s possible that Anyanka saved your life,” Giles said. “Angel says there was a prophecy that the Master would kill you, and I do trust the book he references.” 

“Well, he did, didn’t he?” Larry asked. “Kill her? I saw her go down. It’s just that we sort of skipped over that.”

“Hey?” Buffy said. “Not dead. Prophecy girl is all breathey and living.” 

“She has a point,” Oz pointed out. 

“We have bigger concerns than that, now,” Giles said. “We should look at the damage from last night.” 

Buffy already knew the damage from last night. She’d had to take a shower before they shoved Anya in the bathtub, and her only set of clothes were stained. She had more in her rental car -- she’d had a fake ID since Carter had been her watcher -- but things had been a little too ugly last night to go and get them. 

Angel ducked behind the kitchen counter while they opened the front door. They stared in awe at the destruction. Aging blood lay sticky over every surface, painting the courtyard in a rusty brown. The color shifted the landscape, making plants, walls, the ground itself alien and confusing. Even Buffy balked as she first stepped out from under the overhang and made her way out of the courtyard, her shoes making an ugly, sucking sound as she walked. Things looked even worse out there. Cars were sticky with blood, houses were red with it, the grass had gone from green to a rusty carpet of gore. Buffy swore. “There goes my damage deposit for the rental.” 

“There goes my mom’s garden,” Larry said mournfully. “She loved those hydrangeas.” 

“This stinks,” Anyanka said. She hadn’t even stepped out from the overhang. “Can we close the door again?” 

They stepped back inside, Giles frowning. “I’d best call the school,” he said. “It may be, uh, closed on account of… weather.” He went to his desk and lifted the phone off its cradle. There was a long pause while he waited. “No answer,” he finally said. He glanced at his watch. “The local morning show should be on, let’s see if they have anything to say.” He moved a box of books from in front of a television and turned it on. 

The tiny screen flickered into life, revealing a scene of nauseating horror. Someone was surveying the downtown from a rooftop, and the whole town was awash with the blood. A fire engine was squirting a hose at the town hall, sending cascades of blood-tinged water down the gutter. But for every clean line there were blocks of sickly red pollution, and Buffy felt ill just looking at it. 

For the first time, she started to think that maybe Giles and the others were right about how dangerous this Willow was. 

“Now what?” Oz asked as the news program started interviewing those who were affected by the spell. 

“We have to see what kind of reaction this spell has had,” Angel said. “Willow would have galvanized every vampire in the city. There’s no way they could ignore a show of power that strong. Even the Master never pulled anything like this.” 

“The earthquakes weren’t fun,” Larry said. 

“But they didn’t leave such a specific supernatural residue,” Angel said. “We have to find her and put a stop to her before she takes it into her head to claim the whole country. The whole planet.”

“Uh, who told the vampire he was in charge?” Buffy asked Giles. 

“Buffy… you don’t have to trust me. But I know vampires.” Angel laughed self-deprecatingly. “I should.” 

“Why is he still talking to me?” she insisted. “In fact, why is he still talking _at all?_ I didn’t invite him to join up. In fact, I didn’t invite any of you. I mean, I know you called Wes, Mr. Librarian, but I don’t know what the point of the rest of you is.” 

“We’re the Library Squad,” Larry said. “Well, what’s left of us. We lost Amy last month and Nancy just last night.” 

“We fight the vampires,” Oz said. “We’ve all lost people.”

“It’s better than just sitting at home waiting to be killed,” Larry said. “Giles taught us what we need to know, protections, spells. It’s gratifying.”

“It’s stupid,” Buffy said. “You’re just going to get yourselves killed.” Like some of them already had, she recalled. She looked around the room, at Giles’s piles of books, at the pitifully slender Oz with his delicate fingers, at the open faced Larry with his vapid eyes, and she sighed. “What made you think you could do this?” 

“I, uh, had some training in the occult when I was younger,” Giles said. “Along with my old Watcher training I thought to put it to some use, but was never called upon to do much with my skills.” 

“And then you lost your pupil and went all Batman and Justice League, dragging the others with you.”

“Hey, he didn’t drag us,” Larry said. 

“We volunteered,” Oz said. 

“They had help,” Angel said. “I was there.” 

Why was he still talking? She turned back to Giles. “What about this Willow? How much does she know? Like her powers? I mean, obviously she’s total power girl now, with blood and the horror, but what was she like before?” 

“Shy,” Giles said. “Whimsical. She had a childlike innocence, and an inner core of reason and strength.” 

“She’s different now,” Angel said darkly. 

“I got that,” Buffy dismissed him. “But powers. Did she have this kind of power when she was human, or is it all vampire stuff?” 

“Truthfully?” Giles said. “She had potential to be astonishing. She was still very young.” 

“Yeah, well, now she’s immortal. All right, you have any idea where she might go? No hints?” 

“Well, she was human in the dimension I came from,” Anyanka said. “You could always just check her house.” 

“Willow’s old house has been abandoned since she died,” Giles said. “First Xander killed her mother, and we believe Willow herself killed her father after her transformation.”

“What about this Xander’s house? If they’re so close.” 

“Xander killed his family, too. He’s quite brutal.” 

“That’s fairly typical,” Angel said. “Most vampires kill their families.” 

“Well, you’d know,” Buffy said, snide. 

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Angel asked. 

She turned back to Giles. “You know, I only kept him alive because they said he’d be useful. So he’d better tell me something that isn’t stupid obvious, like, pronto, or I’m going to go the slayage option.”

“Angel?” Giles asked. “Can you help locate Willow?” 

Angel hesitated. “I can’t,” he said. “But I may know someone who can.” 

“Who?” 

Angel looked nervous. “You’re not going to like it,” he admitted. 

  
  


***

Xander watched anxiously as Willow lay on Drusilla’s bed. She’d fainted after she’d finished her blood rain spell, and half of their minions had passed out as well. Xander had recovered fairly quickly. He was about a year older than most of the newborns they had as minions, and Darla had made him strong. Not as strong as Willow herself was with the Master’s blood inside her, but better than the bumpy faces that had been created in the last year. Most of the minions had recovered by now, but Willow was still asleep. Xander had carried her here, removed her corset, rubbed at her feet, but it was taking a long time for her to wake up. 

“Uh, there’s someone here to see Willow.” 

Xander glared at the bumpy-face who was standing in the doorway. “I thought I told you not to disturb us.” 

“Yeah, but there’s this guy here--”

Xander stood up from the side of the bed and went up to the minion. “Did you… question my orders?” 

“Uh….” 

Xander didn’t give him a chance to answer. With a swift movement he kneed him in the stomach and threw him to the ground. 

Another minion behind him backed up. “I told him not to bug you, but he said it was important.” 

“Nothing is more important than Willow getting the rest she deserves,” Xander snapped. 

“It’s just some of Mayor Wilkins’s guys are here,” said the minion. 

“Oh, then by all means, let’s ignore Xander’s orders,” Xander said. “For that matter, let’s just forget the whole concept of orders. Let’s just live in anarchy and rebellion like Spike.” He smiled suddenly at the minion. “Is that what you want?” 

“No,” the minion said, but it wasn’t lost on Xander that he didn’t call him “sir” or “boss.” Vampires liked having someone strong to follow, and Willow was young and out of commission. Xander would have to hold the fort for her until she recovered. He hated to think of what she’d say to him if she came to only to find that he’d dropped the ball. 

The truth was, Xander was terrified. He was young himself, and if it had been up to him he would have stepped back and let someone else take the leadership role. Maybe even Spike himself. Spike was the oldest untainted vampire left in Sunnydale, as far as Xander knew. But Willow had ambitions, and where Willow went, Xander had to follow. They were partners, peas in a pod, best friends their whole lives since kindergarten. That didn’t change just because they were both dead, now. Hell, it hadn’t changed even when Xander was the only one who was dead. He’d just wanted Willow to be dead with him. It had been the greatest moment of his unlife when they’d finally captured Willow and brought her to the Master to be turned. And she hadn’t disappointed, retaining her magical skills and gaining more from her vampiric nature and the Master’s teachings. 

But now Xander had only his young strength and his loyalty to Willow to hold this uncertain following together. He wasn’t sure he could manage it. He considered dusting the vampire talking to him -- he was probably strong enough to do it. But the Master had taught him you could overstep on violence. Vampires wanted to follow, but they wanted to do it on their terms. If you pushed them too hard, they turned on you. Xander took in a deep breath and looked the minion in the eyes. “What was it you thought was so damned important?” 

“He thought I was important,” said a brusque voice. “This is a curious place. Always thought this mansion would be perfect for vampires.” 

Xander turned to face Mayor Wilkins himself, who was flanked by a pair of heavy looking guards. They were only human, but both were armed with crosses. They had them at their sides at the moment, but they looked ready to start bashing vampires with them any second. Wilkins, as usual, looked cool and collected. Xander gulped, a remnant of his human behavior when nervous that he hadn’t shaken yet, and faced the sorcerer with his shoulders squared. 

“It’s Spike’s lair,” Xander said. “We cleared him out. How did you know we were here?”

“With a spell like what was cast last night? What sorcerer _wouldn’t_ know you were here? Do you plan to stay here? Abandon the Bronze?” Wilkins asked. 

“We haven’t made too many plans, yet,” Xander admitted. “We’re still… you know, in the planning stages.” He led Wilkins and his men away from where Willow was helpless and unconscious in the bedroom, taking them to the front hall. 

He felt wildly out of his depth. Whenever the Master had met with Wilkins they’d chatted, they’d laughed, they’d talked about the inevitable someday when Wilkins would take on his final demonic form and devour the rest of the town. The two had been friends since before the Master’s original incarceration, and it was the Mayor who had arranged for Sunnydale to be a veritable warren of tunnels and sewers, ripe for a vampire’s daytime excursions, in preparation for the Master’s ascendance. Xander knew Wilkins had sold his soul for power, and that the man carried considerable weight with the non-vampiric demons of Sunnydale. In short, he knew they had to stay on his good side. 

“Planning stages,” said Wilkins. “And who is us, exactly? You and Willow?” 

“Yeah,” Xander said. 

“Was that her spell last night? Because it tasted of her style. Overdone, showy, adolescent. I told the Master, I said you need to rein her in. She’s a feisty one. I understand wanting someone like that on your team, but last night… that was quite the temper tantrum.” 

“It wasn’t a tantrum,” Xander said fiercely. “Willow had to make a show of power to draw the vampires to her side.” 

“Does she really think she’s ready for such a responsibility?” Wilkins asked. “I mean, I’m all for letting the younger generation have their share of the glory, but to take on the role of the Master? At her age? Why couldn’t you have left it to a more experienced vampire? I understand thinking Spike too much of a loose cannon, but you could have come to me. We could have called someone in. I know vampires all around the world. Proserpina, Dracula, I think Ishani still owes me a favor. I know we’ve lost some masters to the latest slayer, but there’s enough of the older generation still around to have filled in the power vacuum.” He rubbed at his ear. “But Willow still wants to try for it, does she? Where is she?” 

“She’s fine,” Xander said. 

“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” Wilkins said with a smirk. “The truth is, we do have a problem here, young Xander, and I really wanted to talk this out. When there’s a regime change, even brought about by outside forces, well, things can get… a little wibbly-wobbly, if you know what I mean. You do know what I mean, don’t you?” 

“Yeah,” Xander said. “We can handle it.” 

“Can you actually handle the slayer, though? Because that’s what needs to be done now. Not showy acts of town-wide vandalism, but actual thorough planning. I got to tell you, young man, I… I’m really not sure you two are up to the challenge. Particularly if Willow can’t even face me herself.” 

“Hey, Willow can face you just fine,” Xander said, feeling panicked. “She’s just, uh, busy. Right now. With, uh, discipline. Of the other vampires.”

“Yee-ah, see, I’m not sure that excuse is gonna cut it, kiddo. I may have to make a few phone calls of my own after all. You see, the town is in ruins. Everyone is staying home. That is really, really bad for the economy, not to mention my own image. The Master, he understood the line we had to walk for both my ascension and his. We had a deal worked out. He ran the town by night, I by day. But that spell is interfering in my leadership role, and that….” He tisked against his teeth. “Well, that is unacceptable.” 

“No,” said a clear voice from the doorway. “What is unacceptable is leaving the vampires of Sunnydale without someone they can trust to lead them.” 

Xander sagged with relief when he saw Willow. “Wills. Buddy. Why don’t you tell the mayor here what our actual plans are?” 

Willow didn’t look great. She hadn’t put her corset back on, and her undershirt was saggy and wrinkled. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her hair was mussed, but she was conscious, she was articulate, and she was _here_. 

“Willow. Glad to see you up and about,” Wilkins said with a grin. “I was just telling your buddy Xander here that it might be more prudent to call in someone with more experience.” 

“Experience?” Willow asked. “You think someone with so called _experience_ knows how to handle this town? Listen, mister. I knew the Master. I knew his plans, his powers. He shared them all with me. I was his favorite.” 

“She was,” Xander said, his confidence returned now that Willow was awake again. “She knows whereof she speaketh.” 

“And he told me what was expected of me should he fall. I’m his anointed one, his chosen successor. I couldn’t just let Buffy come in and take over. Everyone had to know she was already marked for death.” 

“You didn’t mark the slayer, you marked the town,” Wilkins said. “If the rain hadn’t come in, this whole place would be useless for days. As it is I have to consult my people about the water table. It really was too bad of you.” 

“Rain?” Willow snapped to attention in fury. She stalked to a window and shifted the curtain slightly, in case there were no clouds and the sun was in full force, but no. There were definitely clouds. She pulled the curtain aside and glared out at the jasmine garden. Rain fell in a heavy patter, washing away what was left of the blood. Xander would have already heard it if he hadn’t been horribly distracted. “It’s raining.” She sounded heartbroken. Xander came up behind her and put his arms around her. “It wasn’t supposed to _rain_.” 

“I’m sort of glad it did,” Wilkins said, with that chastising tone again. “If you’d asked me, I wouldn’t have allowed a spell on this sort of scale.” 

Willow’s dejection vanished, and she sucked in a breath through her nose. Uh-oh. That was Willow’s resolve face, and Xander knew there would be bloodshed. Maybe not now, but soon. She shrugged off Xander’s embrace. “You wouldn’t have _allowed?_ ”

The Mayor seemed to realize he’d gone one step too far. “Well, Willow. You should see the havoc it’s created, and it won’t help your cause, any.” 

“I think it will. I think every vampire in Sunnydale will come to me now. I think every demon knows that I wield as much power as the Master. I think the slayer knows that I am coming for her, and I think you, Mayor Wilkins, know that I am not someone to be trifled with.” 

“Don’t you take that tone with me, young lady. I can still put you over my knee, if I decide I need to.” 

“Not yet you can’t,” Willow said. “When is your ascension, Mayor? How many more rituals do you need to dance through? How many more demons do you need to placate? The Master was helping you. Is that the problem? You think I’m not on your side?” 

“I think you had better be, if you know what’s good for you, young lady.” 

The two glared at each other, and Xander felt power crackling. This was a battle of sorcerers, one demonic, one vampiric, and he couldn’t understand exactly what was happening between them. They weren’t casting spells, but they were testing each other with their gaze. 

It was Willow who looked away, but not without defiance. “Well, the weather took a hand in it, right?” she said. “No harm, no foul, as they say?” 

“Not yet,” Wilkins said. “I’ll be willing to forgive your little tantrum, so long as you promise me nothing of the kind will happen again.” 

“And you’ll give me free rein?” Willow asked. “Give me a chance to lead the vampires of Sunnydale. I know I can manage it.” 

“Well, if the Master really did leave you as his successor,” Wilkins said. 

“He did.” 

“Well,” he conceded. “I can give you a little time. If you manage to keep your followers in line. And you keep your spells from interfering in the day-to-day workings of the town. And, oh, yeah. You handle this slayer.” 

“That,” Willow said firmly, “was already on the agenda.” 

“Agenda.” Wilkins laughed. “That’s a good one. Do you have an agenda? Meeting schedules? A book of minutes? No. You’re still working on homework. And that’s what this is. Prove you can do your homework, young lady. Manage this slayer. I won’t do it for you. But I’ll wait until she kills you to make some phone calls.” 

Xander could sense Willow trembling, but she kept her shoulders square. “I trust we won’t disappoint each other, Mayor Wilkins.” 

“We’ll have to see we don’t,” he said. He gestured to his men, who flanked him again, and they took off through the minions to the front door. 

Willow waited until even their scent had faded, and then she sagged against Xander. Xander caught her and held her tightly, burying his face in her hair. “Willow.” 

“I lied,” she confessed. “The Master never told me shit. He thought he’d live forever.” 

“I know,” Xander said. 

“Maybe… could he be right?” she asked. “Have I gotten in over my head?” 

“No. You’re strong. That anointed stuff wasn’t really a lie. The Master really did keep you as his favorite. He’d be proud to see you following in his footsteps.” 

“Do you think I can do it?” Willow said. “Because now we _have_ to kill the slayer. It’s important. We _have_ to.” 

“We were always going to kill the slayer, Wills. You can do it.” Xander kissed her eyes, her nose, her mouth. “I’ll help you.” 

“You were always _my_ favorite, Xander,” Willow said softly. She hugged him warmly and sighed against his shoulder. “I need to feed. Do we have anyone to eat?” 

“Not yet,” Xander said. “But if you wait, I can send the boys out for us at sunset. 

“I hate waiting,” Willow said into his neck, and bit down. 

Xander yelled. He hated it when she did this. But he had to let her; she hadn’t drained him dry yet, and what Willow wanted, Willow got. Even if that was him. 

  
  


***

Angel did not, to Buffy’s irritation, tell them where to find this mysterious person he insisted knew how to track down Willow. He said he wasn’t sure, and he needed to meditate on it. Oz suggested they try the usual suspects first, so he and Larry cleaned the blood off the windshield of the van and drove Buffy to the Bronze, but the place was still deserted. Nothing but bloodstains and corpses. Buffy was all for burning this place down as she had the factory, but they left it up in the hopes Willow would come back to it. 

“Do you think she will?” Buffy asked. 

“I don’t know,” Oz said. “Now that you’re in town, she might not. Willow’s not predictable like other vampires. She was really clever before she was turned.” His eyes grew wistful. “She had the sweetest smile.” 

Buffy stared at him. “You knew her.” 

“I… did,” Oz said. “Sort of.” 

He had a mastered sadness to his face that bothered Buffy even though, no, Oz wasn’t the first person she’d ever met who had lost a loved one to having been turned. “So were you two, like, dating or something?” 

“I had a thing for her. But she was shy, and after having lost Xander, she was hard to get to know. She mostly talked to Giles. I never got around to cracking through her shell. I waited too long.” 

Buffy’s mind flicked back to the night before. “But didn’t you kill her?” she asked. “Before it all skipped back.” 

“Yeah,” Oz said. “I’d do it again. That evil thing isn’t my Willow.” 

“You’re just going to get killed, you know.” 

Oz looked coy. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I’ll be fine.” 

They climbed back into the van to check out Willow’s old house, and Xander’s. Both were still abandoned, and it wasn’t fun navigating the blood sticky streets. Sunnydale smelled like old meat, and the ground sucked at their feet. They were all relieved when a mist descended and rain began to fall. “I think this is going to clear a lot of it up,” Larry said, optimistic. But blood was running in the gutters, and Buffy wondered what it would do to the local sewer system. She was tired. She’d had a rough flight from Cleveland, and midday was usually when she slept. 

Before they went back they checked the factory. Larry was curious to see whether Buffy’s arson had been successful, and Buffy sort of was, too. Two fire trucks were still tending to the place. The building was still largely intact, but every window had smoke stains showing beneath the blood, and it looked like a burned out hulk. Buffy nodded at it. “That’ll do,” she said. 

They went back to Giles’s apartment, and Oz and Larry said they’d better get home. They had parents. They’d called them last night to let them know they were alive, and they’d completely understood the boys waiting until after sunrise to come home, but the sun was high, and their parents were probably getting worried. Buffy dashed through the rain to get back to Giles’s. 

“Any luck?” Giles asked as he let her in. 

“Factory, that club, both dead ends,” Buffy said. “The addresses you gave for where they lived before they died, abandoned and yucky. You finally get in touch with the school?” 

“Yes. It was shut down for the day, but now that the rain has started they’re hoping to reopen tomorrow. The children need a safe place to gather during the day.” 

“Right,” Buffy said. “Has it ever occured to all you guys to just leave town?” 

Giles frowned at her. “Don’t tell me you’ve never fought demons in a place where you think the people ought to just leave.” 

“Yeah, but this place is pretty heinous. I mean, what’s here?” 

“It’s their home,” Giles said patiently. “Besides, the aura of the hellmouth is attractive to many humans, as well. Makes them complacent. I haven’t left yet, myself.” 

“Fine, whatever,” Buffy said. Anyanka was curled up on the couch looking at what looked like a fashion catalog, and Angel seemed to be sitting on the floor. 

“For that matter, we should probably check on the hellmouth, after all this demonic activity,” Giles said. “It was beneath the school. The Master abandoned it after his ascension -- I suspect he was traumatized by his incarceration there -- but it’s still dangerous. I’ve guarded it from most demonic influence, but my wards could still be penetrated.” 

“All right, we’ll go there,” Buffy said. “Did the vampire come up with his source yet?” 

“Not really. He says he knows she’s here, somewhere in Sunnydale, but he doesn’t exactly have a homing beacon.” 

“He knows she’s… oh, fuck.” Buffy marched past Giles and found Angel sitting cross legged on the floor, his hands pinched as if he were meditating. She rolled her eyes. Seriously, he couldn’t even manage a real lotus position? He was a fucking vampire. If he was going to play at meditation pretension, the least he could do was get the stance right. But she didn’t have time to argue this right now. “You know this fucking seer because you turned her, right? Right?” 

Angel opened his eyes. “Buffy?” 

“Giles says you’re mystically _aware_ of this person who’s supposed to help us. It’s another fucking vampire, isn’t it? This is that sire bond thing you guys have. That’s what you’re trying to find, one of your evil offspring.” 

Giles moved close to her. “Is this true, Angel?” 

Angel frowned and finally climbed to his feet. “Well, in a manner of speaking.” 

“Great. So we’re asking a vampire to find another vampire to find yet another vampire. This is going to be a shit show.” 

“Why are you so harsh?” Angel asked. “You used to be sweet.” 

“All right, how the _fuck_ do you think you know me?” Buffy demanded. 

Angel looked from Buffy, to Giles, to Anyanka on the couch, who had perked her head up from her catalog, and then back to Buffy again. “I think it’s time to explain properly what your destiny was meant to be, Buffy. Maybe you should sit down.” 

“No. Thanks. I think I’ll stand.” 

“Fine.” 

Angel elected to stand, too, but Giles sank himself, world weary, onto the couch beside Anyanka. “Please, do enlighten us, Angel. I had no idea you were awaiting the slayer.” 

“Oh, he didn’t tell you all about himself?” Buffy asked. 

“Angel has been fairly mysterious, but he has been helpful. When I identified him from the histories as Angelus he explained that the reason he’d fallen off the map as a vampire was that a hundred years ago he’d angered a Romany clan, which had cursed him with a soul.” 

“A vampire with a soul?” Buffy said. “That’s lame.”

“The Master agreed with you,” Angel said. “He was willing to accept me at first, but after he gathered more followers and I decided to help Giles and his Library Squad he lost his patience with me.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t tell me how you think you know me.” 

“Three years ago I was contacted by a demon -- a balance demon he said he was, called Whistler, who worked on behalf of the Powers That Be.” 

“Who the fuck are they?” 

“They’re who would have arranged for you to be Chosen as the slayer. It’s like another word for fate or… I don’t know.” 

“And you decided to believe him,” Buffy said, not caring. “So what did he tell you?” 

“He told me all about you, where to find you. That you were about to be, or had just been Chosen by the Powers. I came all the way from New York. I watched as you were contacted by your first Watcher. I saw you there on the steps of your school, innocent. Beautiful. I stayed to observe as you performed your first slay. As you went home that night, to your mom. You were just a kid.” 

“And you were creeping on me that whole fucking day?” 

Her ire seemed lost on him. He was dreamy eyed and distracted. “You were meant to come to Sunnydale, and I was meant to help you.” 

“And then what? Were you _meant_ to get into my pants? Was that the deal?” 

Angel opened his mouth, and then closed it again. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you were. You actually thought you were.” 

“Angel, you never told me this. Not once,” Giles said. 

“What do you know about destiny?” Angel said. “You’re just a librarian.” 

“I know that stalking a fifteen year old girl outside of her school in the hopes of claiming her virginity is a very human kind of evil,” Giles said evenly. 

Buffy was surprised. “But I’m not a girl,” she said to Giles. “I’m the slayer.” 

“That doesn’t make you less human.”

“Like the Watchers are doing any better?” Buffy asked him. 

“Angel is not a Watcher,” Giles said. “Had I known Angel had an ulterior motive with you, I would never have worked with him.” 

“I didn’t!” Angel said. “I just wanted to help her. Just because she was beautiful and innocent and sweet, just because I saw all that, that doesn’t mean I thought… or I assumed….” He glanced at Buffy and then looked away.

“Yeah, well now I’m none of those things,” Buffy said. “Does that mean I’m unworthy now?” 

“I didn’t say that. Only that you were meant to come to Sunnydale, and I was meant to help you. But you never came. And when that never happened, the Master rose, and Xander, and Willow and the rest of his followers descended on the town. Whistler was nowhere, and I didn’t know where you were. I had to do something. So I started helping Giles.” 

“You did very little, if that was truly what you thought your destiny was meant to be,” Giles said. “And what help you did bestow was most grudging, and not at all timely. Did you think because there wasn’t a slayer in the bag for you that the Master deserved to rise, and half the town deserved slaughter?” 

“I didn’t think anything,” Angel protested. 

“Yeah, that I believe,” Buffy said. “Is it one of this Master’s followers, this seer you’re looking for?” Buffy said, uncomfortable with the direction this had taken. She didn’t like thinking about herself and vampires and sex. 

“Not exactly. Drusilla was… I am her sire,” Angel confessed. “But she and the Master never got along. I haven’t seen her at the Bronze in ages. She’s… well, she’s insane. ” 

“Of course she is, if you think she’s going to help us,” Buffy snapped. 

“Drusilla?” Giles said. “Drusilla. I’ve heard of her. Where have I heard of her?” He frowned. “I must go back to the library, check my books.” 

“Yeah, I’ll come with you,” Buffy said. 

“You’ll all come with me,” Giles said. “Including you,” he said to Anyanka. 

“Who, me?” Anyanka said. “What have I got to do with any of this?” 

“You created this reality. It is your duty to set it right.” 

“How do you figure that?” 

“Because you’re stuck in it now,” Buffy said. “Same as me and all of us.” She stopped. “Look, tell me. When you knew me in the other world, was I together with this joker?” 

“Truthfully?” Anyanka said. “I think you were, yes.” 

Buffy scoffed. “Thanks,” she said. “You’ve saved me from a fate worse than death.” 


	3. Here We Go

They’d had to wait for sunset so they could bring the vampire, something Anyanka thought was fairly stupid, but at least they’d been able to get another nap in. They all piled into Giles’s Citroen, Anyanka forced into the back with the vampire, and they all trooped into the library together. 

“Why do you do your work here?” she asked as they passed through the swinging doors of the library. “It’s not protected from vampires.” 

“It was easier, with Angel working with us. I have some contacts in demon realms who are uncomfortable in a private home. And I wanted my privacy. Will you bring down that shelf of books?” He pointed to a stack inside his office. 

Anyanka didn’t want to, but he seemed to expect she would, and her first impulse in this teenage human body was to obey an authority figure. She grabbed three books and brought them out, slamming them on the table for the destroyer of her life. “You know, I hope that other Anya has already gotten her powers back, and is wishing you to outer Siberia already.” 

“Other Anya?” 

“When the dimensions split, I would have been bifurcated, too. There’s another Anya in the original timeline. She would have lost her powers, too, but hopefully she’s clever enough to get them back.” 

“What are we doing here?” Buffy asked. “This is a library. That’s watcher stuff. You don’t need me for this.” 

“It wouldn’t hurt you to do a little research of your own,” Giles told her sternly. “Now please, I’m trying to concentrate.”

“I thought we were looking for the hellmouth?” 

“I’m looking for more details on this Drusilla. We’ll check the hellmouth before we leave. Now please, scan this history.”

“No,” the slayer said. 

Giles sighed and turned to Anyanka. “Would you please look through for any mention of--”

“No,” Anyanka said. “I’m your prisoner, not your slave. I’ve already been doing schoolwork for the last two days, I’m not going to do your dumb research.” 

Giles sighed a second time and turned around. “Angel. Would you please tell me--”

“He’s gone. Thought you’d noticed,” Buffy said. “You always keep him off leash like that?” 

“Yes, Angel has always been rather mysterious,” Giles said. “He must have slipped off through the stacks. There’s a hidden entrance back there. I suppose I’m doing this on my own, then. Miss Summers, if you won’t help me with my research, would you check the perimeter of the campus, see if there’s anyone coming for aid?”

“The demon is right, this is a stupid place for a watcher to hang out,” Buffy said. “Why are you here at all? Did you just decide to live at a hellmouth for shits and giggles?” 

Giles paused. “I’m not sure,” he said suddenly. “I came to observe the hellmouth, and got the job here as librarian to monitor it, but I can’t remember why just now….”

“There’s lots of residuals from the original timeline still hanging around,” Anyanka told him. “You were Buffy’s watcher originally, but she didn’t come.” 

“No, no, I remember that the slayer was under the auspices of the watcher Gavin Naxon when I first came to Sunnydale, but I can’t remember why I came….” 

“Look,” Buffy said, her voice hard as flint. “The other life is gone. As far as I can see, it never was. Give me a damned stake. I’ll do a stupid perimeter check. But the demon is right, this is a dumb place for meetings.” 

“Well, that pissed her off,” Anyanka said. “That sounds like a vengeance wish in the offing. Too bad I’m helpless.” 

“You’re not helpless, no one is helpless if they are properly informed. Now if you’d just help me with my research…” 

“I don’t think I like the smell of books. And I don’t like you much either way, you man. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. If you’re not keeping me prisoner, I’m leaving.” 

“And where would you go?” Giles asked her. 

Anyanka was stumped on that one. In the other timeline she had created a fake life and enrolled herself at the high school in the expectation of spending a couple of months finding vengeances she could inflict upon the men of Sunnydale. It was a frequent pattern for a vengeance demon, to set up in a human life and use those connections to find jobs. She wasn’t sure she was still enrolled in the school, and she hadn’t bothered to look at the apartment she’d arranged since her first wish had created an alternate timeline. Considering that apartment had been near the Bronze, and most of the area near the Bronze was infested with demons now, she was fairly sure that false-life she’d created was over, or at least curtailed. “I’m going to check out the school records,” Anyanka said. “See where I live. Since I’m apparently going to have to live here.” 

Giles regarded her, and then sighed yet again, turning back to his books. “As you will,” he said. “I haven’t the time to mind you.” He flipped a page in his book and started scanning the index. 

Anyanka went out to the hallway, but the door to the office was locked, and in a thousand years of wielding the power of the wish, she’d never had to learn how to pick locks. She supposed Giles might have a key, now that she thought about it, but the idea of going back and asking him after she’d made such a show of storming off might strike him as fairly flakey. She grunted in frustration and leaned against the wall, stamping her foot. 

“Well, isn’t this convenient?” said a smooth voice from across the darkened hallway. Anyanka looked over. She wasn’t alone. 

***

Spike had never seen Dru look worse, not even after that mob had beaten her in Prague. Of course she’d been relatively hale before Prague. This time she’d started out weak, and Willow’s attack had made her even weaker. 

He needed to hunt. He needed to get blood for her, if he could even get her to take it, but he didn’t want to leave her alone for that long. Getting blood these days was always a chore. The truth was, Sunnydale had become a crappy place to hunt. It was easier to leave town and pick up a victim from somewhere that wasn’t over-hunted and under a curfew. It had gotten bad enough that Spike had even taken to buying half their blood from the black market. The black market in blood was thriving, he had to admit that, with every animal from ox to otter available on tap even at the local grocery, but getting actual victims? That had become very difficult. 

At least by night. Spike realized that even though this basement was unimproved, the school would be a wonderful place to hunt. Victims coming in by day, milling about -- easy to pick someone off, bring them down to Dru. But the school had been empty all day, and she needed blood _now_. In fact, he was pretty sure she needed something he wasn’t able to supply. 

Sunnydale was a strange place. It had drawn many occultists and demons from across Europe and the Americas, the hellmouth breathing out a siren call that many had followed even without realizing it. Spike knew from his readings that there had once been an occultist called DuLac here in Sunnydale, a theosophist and a medium who had worked with vampires and spirits to master his own powers and theirs. He’d heard tell of something called the DuLac Manuscript which held the secrets of this occultist, but unfortunately when he came to Sunnydale he’d been unable to find it. What minions he could collect were usually running off to get chanty with the Master and his cronies, and Spike lost patience with book research too easily. He hadn’t been able to track the manuscript down yet, not from any dealers or libraries in Sunnydale. 

Though now that he was here, he realized he hadn’t checked the high school library. He’d heard that white hat librarian that caused so much trouble had a collection of ancient tomes. He’d have sent his minions to search, but as like as not they had thrown their lot in with Willow when he ran. Damn. He’d have to amass some more. 

And damn, he was hungry. He’d lost a lot of blood, and Dru had lost even more. He looked down at where Drusilla was curled against his thigh, frowning and pale in her sleep, and he worried… and worried… and worried. 

Could he dare try to go hunt? He didn’t want to leave Drusilla alone. He had just come to the conclusion that he would wait until the school reopened even though that might take another day, when he heard footsteps above him. They weren’t loud, but they were real. “Someone’s in the library,” he sang to himself. Perfect. Fresh meat for Dru, and he wouldn’t have to leave her for long. 

He slid out from under Dru’s weight and gently cradled her head as he laid her down. “Switching around,” she murmured in her sleep. “Burn and twist and weep….” 

Spike kissed her forehead lingeringly before slipping out the door and past the wards around the hellmouth, sliding up the steps as lightly as a dancer, quiet as a cat. He opened the door to the stairwell and saw someone -- a girl -- trying the door of the office. The lock fazed her, and Spike couldn’t help but smile. It was too easy. 

“Well, isn’t this convenient?” 

The girl turned to look at him. “The school’s closed,” she said brusquely. 

“Not here to feed my mind,” Spike said, sliding after her, fixing her with his eyes. “Just to feed the rest of me.” He darted forward with fangs bare, and the girl screamed. Spike spun her and twisted her head back to bite down, hoping to subdue her enough to bring her back to Drusilla, but a door opened, and another girl came running in. Even better. Two for the price of one. He’d kill this girl and take the other down to Dru. 

“Give us a moment,” Spike said to her as he gripped the first girl tighter. “I’ll get to you.”

“Uh, no,” the girl said, and she pulled something out of her waistband. “I’ll get to you.” 

That was a stake. The girl had a stake, and a scar, and an attitude. A frisson of excitement raced up Spike’s spine. They’d said she was in town. He let the first girl go and drew in a breath, sniffing the air to get the new girl’s scent. It could be. It definitely could be. He wished he’d had time to say goodbye to Dru, but whatever. It was too late now. 

Spike was facing the slayer. 

***

Buffy watched as Anyanka ran in the direction of the library, leaving her alone with her prey. The vampire was pale haired and dressed with flair, which meant probably not a newborn. Newborns either dressed like slobs, or in funereal suits of varying degrees of disrepair. He showed no fear as he faced Buffy, but she was used to that. Not all vampires had heard of the slayer. 

Turned out, though, this one had. He circled, pacing closer, and smiled around his fangs. “Heard you were in town, slayer.”

“Funny, I never heard of you,” Buffy said.

“You should have,” the vampire said. He had an accent, British, maybe, but more common than any of her Watchers had been. “I’ve done a couple slayers in my time. About to do another one.” 

“You’re gonna have a hard time doing that as a big pile of dust,” Buffy said. He was feeling her out. She read his movements. They were practiced, predatory. She wasn’t scared exactly, but the hairs prickled on the back of her neck. He might not actually be lying. The memory of the Master’s attack yesterday lingered with her, the feel of his hands on her skull, the crack in her ears, the rush as she started to leave the world. Was she ready to risk that again? 

Yeah, she was. 

“The last slayer I killed…,” he said, inching closer. Buffy shifted so she didn’t have the wall at her back. “She begged for her life. Now, are you the begging kind?” 

“Not for a loser like you.” 

“Ooh, cutting. Touch of style. I like. Let’s see how you dance.” He rushed her. Buffy half hoped he’d just run onto her stake, but he knocked her arm aside, and punched her in the face. It shocked her, but not enough to throw her. She fought back, double punching with her stake arm and twisting sideways with her other to shove him back. He was strong. Not strong like the Master had been strong, age and followers, but ingenuity and enthusiasm rang in every line of him. This fight wasn’t going to be fast. He darted aside, used the wall as leverage, and flung himself back at her. She grunted with the impact even as she moved out of the way. If she’d gotten the full hit, it would have knocked her back. 

She was on better guard now. This was not going to be an easy or a straightforward fight. She ducked another blow -- damn, he was fast -- and tried to catch him in an uppercut with her stake, but he was already out of reach. She swirled in a roundhouse kick, attempting to catch him in the torso, but he made a jump that she hadn’t expected and landed out of range. “You’ll never kill me from way over there,” she taunted. 

“You won’t kill me, either,” he said, but he was circling again. Damn. She’d have to go on the offensive. The last thing she wanted was for him to make a break for it and bolt. He might tell whoever was in charge now where she was -- maybe tell Willow and Xander, since everyone seemed to think they would have taken over. Though the truth was they probably already knew, since this school was the absolute worst, most obvious place for a school librarian to have his secret meetings. 

Damn, she was getting distracted. She needed to focus on the vampire, who was getting the upper hand. He landed a couple more blows, twisted away from another stab of Buffy’s stake, and then twirled behind her. 

To her shock, she felt a tight swat on her bottom. It didn’t hurt, not the way the blows from his fist had, but it sounded out with a loud _smack_ that echoed in the empty school hallway, and filled her with a fury that she hadn’t felt in years. She felt embarrassed, degraded, dismissed. She blushed hot, and rounded on the vampire, who had his head tilted with a smirk. 

“Oh, you are _so dead!_ ” she growled, and for the first time she saw fear in his eyes. Fear in his movements, too, and he made to back away from her, but she wasn’t letting that happen. She rushed, and he turned and ran, which meant she was winning, but the sight of his running heels wasn’t the sight of his face being pummelled, which was the only thing she wanted to see just now. He came to a turn in the hallway and made a comical spin on his heels to turn the corner, but she wasn’t that stupid, and she knew he’d already turned to face her when she came around, so she had her stake at the ready, and he was startled that she’d guessed his plan, and the blow connected, but not right where she needed it to. She’d staked the wrong breast, and she had to make sure she didn’t lose her weapon as the vampire grabbed at it and tried to pull it from her hand as he yanked it out of his chest. 

Now he was angry, too. She could see it in his yellow eyes, in the firm set of his fanged mouth, as the humor left his visage and a new look of determination crossed it. He kicked, hit, swiped, and she blocked, twisted, and dodged. Then she struck, and he turned, and he shoved, and she went back flying to hit the school lockers, and she lost her stake, and that was bad. She spared a scant second to find her breath as the vampire loomed over her, ready to strike.

She flipped up and kicked him in the same movement, and now it was his turn to be knocked back. He fell to his face, and she used the moment to locate the stake that had skittered down the hall. She made a handspring to grab it, and darted up in time to watch him raise an eyebrow from a semi-recumbent position on the floor. “Do the gymnastics help?” 

“Actually, yeah,” she said, and she tossed herself into a cartwheel mostly to impress him, partly to get back at his level, because he was getting up now, and she wanted to keep him guessing. She finished her cartwheel just where she could have staked him if he hadn’t gone sideways and performed a roll of his own, his coat flying. They faced each other again. Both were winded, even the vampire, who technically didn’t need breath, but that had never stopped Buffy from using their breathing to judge their fitness. He was fit, but she was scaring him. 

“What’s the matter, buddy? You haven’t run yet. You have a death wish?” 

“No more than you have, facing vampires every night,” he said. “Besides. You’d just stake me in the back.” 

“Well, that’s the safest way, isn’t it? Besides. You might escape me.” Buffy gestured with her chin toward the nearest set of exit doors. “Go on. Try it.” 

“I don’t run from slayers. I hunt them out. Drain them dry. Quite the aphrodisiac. Pretty good cut with Schnapps.” He was talking conversationally, and Buffy was getting nervous. What was he planning? 

She figured it out too late. With a shift of his elbow he shattered something behind him. A glass door with a fire axe behind it. She tried to make a move then, to catch him before he retrieved the axe, but he already had it before she got into staking range. She slid back and just missed getting sliced in the torso. 

“Oh, do you really need a weapon for this?” she taunted. 

“I just like them,” he said, still smirking. He slid one hand down his belly, suggestive. “They make me feel all manly.” 

“Well, they make you look like a putz,” she said. “You’re a vampire. Where’s all the grr, argh?” 

“You’re a slayer. Where’s the smell of destiny?” 

Buffy felt herself flushing again. “I am sick and tired of hearing about my damned destiny,” she yelled, and she kicked the axe out of his hand. It cut her leg as she did it, but she didn’t care. She had absolutely lost her patience with this vampire. The fight had gone on too long. It was time to end it. She kicked and blocked and ducked and pushed, backing him closer and closer to the library doors, and he got a couple more blows in, but she ignored them and slammed into his chest. 

And then they were locked. He was bigger and had more mass, but her slayer muscles were stronger. Her stake was at his chest, the other hand trying to force him away, but one of his hands was on the same stake, pulling it down away from his flesh, while his left hand held her head, trying to force her neck forward so he could bite. She could feel his teeth touch her throat, feel her stake driving into his breast, and it was going to depend on which was stronger, who died faster, because if they kept on they were both going to be dead in seconds. 

“No, stop!” shouted Angel’s voice. To Buffy’s surprise, the vampire’s head shifted as automatically as hers did. “Don’t kill her! Buffy, don’t, we need him!” 

Neither of them let up. They just froze, their attention on Angel, and then turned back to each other. Buffy wasn’t at all sure she was going to listen to Angel, and she could think of no reason why the vampire would listen to him, either. A growl rumbled in her opponent’s throat, and she grunted in irritation, staring up at his yellow eyes. 

“Spike,” said Angel slowly. “Don’t do it. I need her.” 

“She’s the slayer, Angel,” Spike said low, still gripping tightly to Buffy’s hair. “She’ll kill us both.” 

“She’s my destiny,” Angel said. 

Buffy lost her patience, stamped on Spike’s foot, and whirled to face Angel. “I am not! That destiny is gone, finished, and good fucking riddance to it! And why can’t I kill this freak?” 

“He’s with me,” Angel said. 

“I am not!” 

“Sort of,” Angel said. “He’s with Drusilla. If Spike’s here, Dru’s not far away.”

“Oh, are you trying to use her again?” Spike said. “I told you last year, if you can’t be bothered to look out for her, you don’t get to pump her for visions.” 

“So you two fucking know each other?” Buffy asked. 

“He’s my sire,” Spike said. “Sort of.” 

“He’s Drusilla’s… uh… boyfriend?” 

“She’s my princess, not my sodding girlfriend,” Spike snapped. 

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, are you guys in middle school?” She looked at Angel. “You’re his sire?” 

“In a way.” 

“And you didn’t think to tell me we were looking for _two_ vampires, not one?” 

“Well, we are looking for one. Just where one goes, the other follows,” Angel said. 

“Great. So now we’re using one vampire to find another vampire to find another vampire to find yet another fucking vampire,” Buffy grumbled. “It’s like an ouroboros of fucking vampires.” 

Spike looked at her funny, and his eyes shifted from yellow to blue. His human face was expressive, with high cheekbones and soft edges. He regarded her with an expression she couldn’t read, then turned back to Angel. “You’re working with the slayer now?” 

“She rescued me,” Angel said. “Which is more than you ever bothered to do.” 

“Like we could do boo against the bloody Master,” Spike said. “Dru’s dying, you sod. I didn’t give a rats arse about who you were feuding with this week.” 

“She’s not dying,” Angel said. He paused. “Is she?” 

“If she wasn’t before, she probably is now. Willow decided she needed our blood for her little rain spell.”

“Oh, and you gave it to her?” Buffy asked. “Tell me again why I can’t just stake him?” 

“Can I eat her now, mate?” Spike said at the same time, and they both glared. 

“I think we all need to talk,” came Giles’s voice from behind Angel. “Anyanka, is this the vampire who attacked you?” 

“Yeah,” Anyanka said from behind Giles. He’d armed her with a cross, and she looked nervous. “Though he looked a little more bitey then.” 

“Well, he doesn’t seem to be particularly… bitey now,” Giles said. “And you’re friends with Angel?” 

“I’m not friends with you,” Spike said to Angel. 

“Yes,” Angel said firmly. “Just shut up for once, Spike, and let me handle this.” 

“Last time I let you handle something, I had to swim fifty miles in the dark just to bury myself in the sand for a day! _And_ deal with your entitled little minion. If anything, you owe me, mate.” 

“I was saving your life, the government was… look, it doesn’t matter. Can we please focus on the subject at hand? Spike, we need to find Willow before she does something bigger than play weather witch. I need you to ask Dru where she is.” 

Spike hesitated, then his face hardened. “Yeah, well, we’d need Dru to do that, wouldn’t we?” Spike said. “And she’s a little indisposed.” He looked from Angel to Giles and back again. “You’re that white hat with the old books, yeah?” he said to Giles. “Tell you what. You tell me how to get Drusilla back on her feet again, and I’ll see to it she tells you what you need to know.” 


	4. New Plan

Spike was playing with fire. 

They’d dicked around in the library for more than forty minutes, settling on the terms of a truce. Angel wanted access to Drusilla. Spike wanted the DuLac Manuscript. They all had to agree not to kill each other until the truce was over. “And when’s that, then?” Spike asked.

“Once we find Willow and destroy her.” 

“And when that happens?” 

“Then you leave town, and don’t bother any of us again,” Angel said. 

“No deal,” Spike said. “Until Drusilla’s all better.” 

“What are you talking about?” said the slayer. “Some evil vampire’s dying. We can get a little info out of her before she kicks it. Are we really contemplating letting them go?” 

“We can’t kill them,” Angel said. “Not until we get our information.” 

“I find threatening them with stakes and holy water usually gets their attention,” the slayer said. “If you’ll just let me get my hands on him--”

“No,” said Angel. 

“Now hang on!” said Spike. 

They’d shouted at each other over the next five minutes, during which time the slayer threatened to kill him no less than eleven times, Spike had talked about eating her no less than thirteen, and Angel had lost his patience and vamped out twice, once at Spike, and once at the slayer, which made her pull out her stake, and Spike thought things were really about to get interesting when the librarian stepped in between them all brandishing a cross. 

“Now listen! We’re not going to get anywhere threatening to kill each other! Miss Summers, I understand that it is your sacred calling to destroy the vampires, but can we agree that it is prudent to work together? The enemy of my enemy is my friend, in the moment?” 

The slayer fumed, but she crossed her arms and leaned back, the aggression out of the set of her shoulders. “We can’t trust them,” she said. “But I suppose I can listen. For the moment.” 

“And Angel, I understand that these are your friends, and you’d rather not see them staked.” 

“ _What_ them?” the slayer said. “I only see one. The useless one without visions.” 

“Drusilla’s here,” Angel said. “She must be. But yes. No. I don’t want…. It’s complicated.” 

“I can see that. So Mr….” The librarian turned to Spike. 

“Spike.”

“Spike? Bit unorthodox, isn’t it?” 

Spike contemplated snapping the man’s neck, but he did have that cross. He’d get a nasty burn. And probably brass off Angelus, not to mention the slayer, who probably would kill him this time. He’d nearly lost that fight. She was better than his first slayer, at least as good as his second. A slip of raw desert sunshine with the death wish to carry it, she’d actually scared him for a few minutes there. He had two wounds in his chest to deal with, one down to the lung, the other just scraping a rib. Not to his heart. Yet. But if Angel hadn’t distracted them, he wasn’t at all sure which of them would be toast right now. He suspected both. 

But the truth was, he wouldn’t have chosen to go out slayer hunting right now, not with Dru as weak as she was. If he could come out on top with this deal, Spike was willing to play. For a little while, at least. “Name went over in the ‘80s,” he said to Giles. Both ‘80s, now he thought about it. 

“Spike,” the librarian said again. “You are worried about your paramour, and would like to consult with my collection about a cure for her. And you won’t tell us her location until you are assured of her safety.” 

“Got it in one,” Spike said. “But that’s a slayer, and Angelus is Angelus. So, I don’t see how you’ll manage to _assure_ me of anything.” 

Giles looked around at the three of them, checking their faces. “Are we all listening?” 

No one said no. 

“We all want Willow and Xander defeated, yes?” 

Spike didn’t give two hoots about Willow and Xander compared to getting Dru better, but he held his tongue. 

“I used to dabble in sorcery when I was younger, and I’ve been practicing since the Master ascended. I believe I can cast a spell that can make us all satisfied.” 

Then he explained it, and Spike didn’t like it. Giles had the text of an ancient geas, one that would bind all who entered into it to keep to their promise to the other. “If I perform this geas upon you, you would promise not to kill each other until the conditions of the spell are met. In this case, the defeat of Willow and Xander.” 

“I can’t do that,” the slayer said. Buffy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ridiculous name. Spike was finding her very distracting. She was tough and dangerous and her leg was bleeding into her boot. He suspected that was one of the reasons Angel had vamped out while they were arguing. Angel had never been good at keeping his fangs down when something aroused him, and he was _very_ aroused by this slayer, whatever else he was. Spike had more control. At least over that. He sniffed the blood in the air and licked his lips. No way he’d get to taste her yet. Shame. 

“You can’t promise not to stake Spike and Drusilla?” Giles asked her.

“And Angel,” she said firmly. “And yeah, no. I can’t.” 

“Why not?” 

“And let them run off and eat someone? Snap your neck, suck down Anyanka, stalk your precious Library Squad boys? Nuh-uh. They’d have to swear not to kill _anyone._ And they won’t because they’re fucking vampires.” 

“I haven’t killed anyone since the day I got my soul,” Angel said. 

“And that’s a bloody lie,” Spike said conversationally. 

“Stop it!” the librarian said. “Fine. We would include Angel in the geas, and stipulate that none of the vampires were permitted to kill any human being, including the slayer, until the conditions are met.” 

“And what if they never get met?” Spike asked, carefully not pointing out the other flaw in the promise. If Giles kept saying he couldn’t _kill_ any human being, he could still hurt and feed on them with impunity even if he agreed. “I’m not going to be castrated by a bloody librarian for the rest of my damned unlife. I’m not Angel.” 

“I couldn’t maintain the spell indefinitely, anyway,” Giles said. “I don’t have infinite power. It would fade after a time. Probably a year.” 

“I just have your word for that,” Spike said, though he actually believed it. 

“Fine,” Giles said, sounding exasperated. “I will include the time stipulation in the spell itself. Would that satisfy you?” 

Spike considered. It was risky, but he had never been risk averse. “And Angel gets mojoed up too?” 

“Yes,” Buffy said firmly. 

“I don’t need to,” Angel said. “I don’t hunt human beings.” 

“You could,” the slayer said. 

Angel sighed and looked wounded. The slayer was unaffected by his soppy puppy routine, Spike was pleased to note. 

“What do we need to do?” 

“You need to stand with me while I recite the incantation, and indicate your agreement. I need physical contact, and you need to join in when I say with, ‘ _So mote it be.’_ And we will need to get Drusilla to agree to it, as well.” 

“She’s pretty weak,” Spike said. “She’ll need blood before she can agree to aught. It can be lamb,” he added before anyone could protest. He could always get her some human later, if he thought it was necessary. “But I get your promises first, before we go anywhere near her.” 

“Maybe I’ll just find her myself,” Angel said. 

“Maybe I’ll just take off for somewhere more cheerful,” Spike told him. 

“We just agreed, do we need to start fighting again?” Giles asked. “Does everyone agree to this wording? Miss Summers, yours is, ‘I promise to uphold this oath not to kill Spike, Angel or Drusilla until such time as Willow and Xander are defeated, or a year passes in this realm.’” 

“Yeah, okay,” Buffy said reluctantly. 

“And Spike, and Angel. ‘I promise to uphold this oath not to kill any human being, including the slayer, until such time as Willow and Xander are defeated, or a year passes in this realm.” 

“Yeah, that’ll do,” Spike said quickly, hoping Angel wouldn’t notice the catch, either. He didn’t. Spike wanted to extract a no-harm promise from Angel, too, but he was pretty sure Angel wouldn’t try to torture them. Angel still seemed to love Dru, and he had put up with Spike, and that soul made him pretty sappy, so Spike didn’t want to push his luck asking for any more clauses. He could manage Angel. It was the slayer who was the real threat. 

Giles performed the geas, which was actually much more complicated than the promise itself, involving a lengthy passage in old Gaelic, the writing of the promise on a piece of lambskin parchment, and a drop -- just a drop, or Spike would have protested -- of their blood on the contract to indicate their agreement. “Now you must say it,” Giles told them. 

“So mote it be,” Buffy said. 

“So mote it be,” Angel said. 

Spike hesitated one more second. _Risk taker, rule breaker,_ he thought. “So mote it be,” he said. 

Something tickled him, like a feather through his brain, and he shivered. The others seemed affected, too, as they shuddered, and Buffy shook her head, wisps of hair falling from her braid. Spike was quite satisfied. He’d agreed not to kill humans for a year -- or until he’d achieved vengeance for Willow’s bloodletting of Dru, whichever came first. It was a high price, but a worthwhile one. He could still fight if he needed to, still feed if he was careful about it, and it wasn’t lost on him that he could still kill Angelus if he wanted. Or torture the slayer, if it came to it. Of course, they might realize they could hurt him too, if they wanted to, but he was hoping they weren’t clever enough to have caught that. But he knew they couldn’t do shit to Dru. Anything that would hurt her right now would probably kill her, so she was safe until she was cured. 

“Now we test it,” Spike said. 

“What?” Angel asked. 

“Before I’m telling you where Dru is, I need this tested out. You,” he pointed to Buffy. “Get over here.” 

“I don’t have to listen to you.” 

Spike cocked his head. Bitch thought she was cute, did she? “Fine,” he said. “I’ll test it.” He vamped out and went for her throat. 

It was like trying to enter a private home without an invite. He got to a certain point then just… stopped. Nothing stopped him, but he couldn’t go on, anyway. Buffy had tensed up when he attacked, and he wasn’t at all surprised when she picked up a stake and tried to use it on him. She raised it, moved for him, and then stopped herself. 

“Well,” she said. “You did it, Mr. Giles. Let’s hope you stay pleased with yourself.” 

Giles did look pleased with himself. “Yes. I rather think I will. Now if you, Spike, will go and fetch Drusilla, I will rework the spell for her.” 

“I wasn’t kidding. She needs blood.” 

“I’ll get it,” Angel said. “I know where.” 

“Are your contacts still amenable to you?” Giles asked. “You’ve been gone for over a month.” 

“Not all the blood dealers in Sunnydale were the Master’s pets,” Angel said. “I’m sure I can get something.” 

“Not pig,” Spike snapped. “She hates pig.” 

“No fighting,” Giles said sternly. “We’re all allies now.” 

“You’re all idiots,” Anyanka said from where she’d been sitting on the library steps. “Any second now Willow’s followers could descend on us from the night, and you’re all playing promise squares. Giles, can’t we go back to your apartment? This place is dangerous.” 

Giles sagged. “Later,” he said. “Spike?” 

“All right,” Spike said, though it occurred to him that Anyanka had a point. It was never something he'd had to worry about before, but now that he wasn’t playing the Big Bad, and the current big noise in Sunnydale was probably Willow -- and she might well have stolen his minions -- it was something he was going to have to think about. The school wasn’t safe for long, as Anyanka had made very clear. Where was he going to stay? 

Still, had to do what he could. He went down to fetch Dru and coax her into consciousness for the geas ritual. Hopefully he could get her to agree in her weakened condition. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice the loopholes and close them. Hopefully he could get Drusilla’s cure before the white hats realized that Willow was probably still at Spike’s place, and they didn’t need Dru to find her after all. And hopefully at the end of all of this, he’d still have enough mojo to bag himself a third slayer. 

Oh, he was definitely playing with fire. 

***

“Well, we’re rolling the dice,” Buffy said. “Do you really think turning them into a bunch of suckers is going to keep us safe?” 

“Suckers?” Giles asked, flipping through one of his books. 

“Yeah. Suck vamps, suck houses, money suckers, you know. Vamps who eat, but don’t kill. Think it’s going to be enough?” 

Giles looked Buffy over. “I haven’t heard of that happening since… well, the ‘70s. Do you think I didn’t go far enough?” 

Buffy shrugged. “It’ll keep them in line, I guess. I can always lock them up and fight them off. It’s enough I can keep an eye on them until we’re done with Willow and Xander and I stake them.” 

Giles looked back up from his books. “Are you really planning to double-cross them like that?” 

“They’re planning it for me,” Buffy said. “If it hurts your little morals, I’ll make sure they go all fang-faced at me first, before I stake. Make you feel better?” 

“Yes,” Giles admitted. “Yes, if they had attacked you first, that would make me feel better. Particularly for Angel. He’s been an invaluable asset to us.” 

“That Spike guy seems to think he lied to you a lot.” 

“That Spike guy could be telling lies himself,” Giles reminded her. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know why he’d bother. At least he’s not pretending to be what he’s not. He wants something, he made a deal. Makes sense to me.” And he wasn’t trying to use predeterminism theory to get into her crotch, which put him much greater on the scales than Angel was, in her book. No, Spike saw a slayer, he attacked. Good. At least you could know where you stood with a vampire like that. 

Or so she thought. A few moments later, Spike pushed his way into the library, a dark haired woman in his arms. She was dressed all in white, but her left sleeve was dark brown with old blood. She hung in Spike’s arms completely unconscious, though her eyelids fluttered when he carried her to the table. “Clear a space,” Spike said, his voice tense. “She’s gotten worse.” 

Giles cleared several books down to the chairs, and Spike stretched Drusilla out on the table, catching her head so he could set it gently down. “She can’t answer me,” Spike said, listening to her chest -- for her breathing, maybe? “Why won’t she answer me?” 

“Does she need blood?” Giles asked. 

“We don’t have any, Angel isn’t back yet.” He caressed Drusilla’s cheek and stared worriedly into her face. “I don’t think she can swallow. I don’t know what to do.” He looked up in desperation at Giles. “Well, you’re the wizard, library boy! Think of something!” 

“I don’t have a spell for this,” Giles said. “I’d need more time to research.” He paused. “I have an emergency IV in the fridge in my office, in case any of the Library Squad were drained in an attack. I could only keep a pint of red blood cells, O negative. Would it help?” 

“Yes, let me get it,” Spike said, disappearing with Giles into the office behind the desk. Buffy looked down at the girl. She was pale and hollow eyed, but she had an ethereal beauty that she found frightening as much as it was alluring. Buffy touched the girl’s smooth hand, and her eyes opened, blue and staring. She opened her mouth to say something, and then lapsed back into unconsciousness. 

“Here, help me,” Spike said, coming back out with an IV, and Buffy took a quick step back. Giles held the bag of blood while Spike found a vein on Drusilla’s arm and plunged in the needle. Nothing happened the first time, and Spike swore and aimed again. This time a droplet of blood sucked up into the syringe, and he disconnected the needle, leaving the tube in Drusilla’s arm. He screwed the tube into the IV, and then took the bag from Giles, making sure it was high enough to drip down into her arm. 

Then they could only wait. Spike held the bag over his head, then lightly rubbed Drusilla’s arm, smoothing the blood up her vein. Buffy knew that vampires didn’t have a pulse, but they had a magically involved circulation which kept the blood moving. She hadn’t known it needed external help to keep IV blood from pooling. “I didn’t realize she was this bad,” Buffy said. She had never seen a vampire in this state, ever. Usually they were trying to kill her, actively trying to drink someone’s blood, or they were dust. “How is this even possible?” 

“I don’t know,” Spike said, annoyance in his growl. “She was never as strong as she could have been. Then this mob in Prague attacked, and she was never the same after. I don’t know if there was some poison introduced into her system, or just too many internal injuries. We’re only immortal after a fashion. All I know is, she never got better. The hellmouth restored her a little, but she fades if she’s taken from it. And Willow knew all this,” Spike snapped. “And she didn’t care.” 

“Of course she didn’t care,” Buffy said. “She’s a vampire, why should she care?” 

“I’m a vampire,” Spike said darkly. “And I care.” 

“Only about her though, am I right?” Buffy asked quietly. 

“Dru comes first,” he said, just as quietly, without looking at Buffy. The concern in his blue eyes was deep and all encompassing. 

Well, this solidified something, all right. This woman was utterly helpless, and could not possibly defend herself. They couldn’t stay here. “Anyanka's right, Giles. We can’t keep using this library. We’d better go back to your apartment.” 

“I don’t want to use my flat for meetings. Then I’ll have no safe sanctuary.” 

“Didn’t stop the other watchers I know.”

“Would you use _your_ apartment?” Giles asked her. 

“When I make deals with suckers, I do it in the streets,” Buffy said. “Look, what’s the housing market like here? I’ve seen a lot of for sale or rent signs.”

“Sunnydale is reaching a crisis point,” Giles admitted. “Are you saying you want to rent an apartment?” 

“Or a house. If Drusilla is this weak, she can’t defend herself from another attack, and we need her, don’t we? Look, once we finish up this spell, after Angel comes back, we need to find somewhere safer to have nighttime meetings. Is there some housing website?”

“I’m not sure. You’d have to look in the computer lab, I don’t keep that kind of equipment, here.” 

“Real cutting edge watcher type, you are. Do you stuff your own shirts, or do you get that sent out?” 

“What are you saying?” Spike asked. He turned around, still holding the IV bag over his head. 

“I’m saying, I’m going to rent somewhere with a basement, and bring Drusilla to live with me,” Buffy said. “At least until she’s better and we use her to track down Willow.” 

“Dru and I stay together.” 

“Then I guess we’re going to get real cozy, Spike,” she said with a smirk, and she caught his eyes dilating as she said it. 

“Never got cozy with a slayer, before,” he said. “Unless you count cuddling up to murder them.” 

“If you’re trying to impress me, all you’re doing is pissing me off,” Buffy said. 

Spike grinned. “Could be that’s all I’m trying for, eh?” 

“Do you have the key to the computer lab?” she demanded of Giles. 

Giles handed her a ring of keys with one of them sticking out. 

“I’m coming with you,” Anyanka said. “If there’s another one of those vampires around, I’d rather be next to the slayer than whatever he is. A has-been watcher, a wannabe wizard, or a sometime librarian. You ever thought of specializing?”

“Actually, I find they go together quite well,” Giles said as they left. He turned back to Spike. “Now what was that book you were hoping I had?” 

Buffy headed to the computer lab, found a computer that connected to the internet, and looked up a realty website. There was a lot going on in Sunnydale, empty-property-wise. The prices seemed to be rock bottom and she only wanted to rent. She finally found something within walking distance of the school and Giles’s apartment, and well within her budget. “What do you think of this?” she asked Anyanka. 

The ex-demon looked over Buffy’s shoulder at the pretty looking house with a window box and trees and lovely front porch. 

“It’s a three bedroom on Revello Drive. Says it’s been up for rent for over three years now.” But the pictures of the interior included a spacious basement, and it was a comfortable looking house, touted as partially furnished, whatever that meant. 

“It’s a nice place to live,” Anyanka said. “Too bad _I_ don’t have one anymore.” 

“You’re living with me,” Buffy said, without even looking at her. 

“What?” 

“With me,” Buffy said. “You’re the only one who knows about what’s actually happened. If there’s any more effects or byproducts or fuck-ups from this dimensional bifurcation, you’re the only person who can find me more answers. And I want to know more about what that other world was like, so that means you stay with me.” 

“Really? I’m… I’m flattered, I--”

“It’s not a date, it’s insurance. If I decide not to stake you when I’m done, I’ll sublet the place to you when I leave. You get the smallest bedroom, deal?” 

“Deal,” Anyanka said. She sounded relieved. 

“And we share it with the vampires.” 

“The ones who can’t kill for a year?” 

“Yeah, those ones.” 

“I can manage that, I guess. The blond one’s cute.” 

“He seems taken,” Buffy pointed out. 

“Doesn’t seem to stop other demons I know.”

“We’ll see,” Buffy said. She printed out the phone numbers for that house and a few others, in case her first choice was impossible, listening to the occasional quip from Anyanka. When she finally came back, Angel was there, and the IV bag was empty of blood. Drusilla looked marginally better. Spike was cradling her in his lap, trying to coax her to drink from a leaking plastic bag of butcher’s blood. She’d suckle for a little, then let her mouth lapse, and the blood would slip down her lip or her cheek. Spike would stop the hole with his finger, use a tissue to wipe up the spilled blood, then coax her to take more. 

Angel looked worried, too. While Spike cradled and coaxed, Angel hovered by her feet, occasionally reaching out to touch her ankle or her hand. Buffy was touched by the little vampire family, which disturbed her, and when anything disturbed her, she got hard. “All right, they’re settled, aren’t they? Time to check out this hellmouth and get the hell out of here.” 

“What do we do with them?” Giles asked. 

“They can hole up for the day wherever Spike was hiding Dru,” Buffy said. “School basement, right?” 

“One more day?” Spike asked. 

“Unless you can move during daylight, yeah. Most humans work human schedules. I can’t call this number until morning.”

“Yeah, we can manage one more day. So long as we get our blood.” 

“Giles, you should take whatever books are most important for Drusilla’s cure and get them out of here. Somewhere you can study them without danger from vampire attacks. I’m going to go see what I can do with my rental car, see if I can’t get something a little cheaper for the long run.” 

“How long do you plan on staying?” Giles asked her. 

“As long as it takes. How long before you think you can cure vision head there?” 

“I haven’t even found the right manuscript yet.” 

“Then I stay here in Sunnydale. There’s plenty of smaller vamps and demons to kill, and if Willow and Xander get itchy, it might not take very long. I’ll call Wes, tell him I’m bunking here for a bit.” 

“Your watcher might not like that.” 

“Did you hear that?” Buffy asked, cupping her hand around her ear. “That was the sound of me not giving a shit.” 

Spike chuckled around Drusilla’s limp body. 

Buffy made phone calls, leaving a message telling the realtor to expect another call promptly at eight, and waking Wesley up to tell him she intended to stay in Sunnydale for a while. “Is there a problem?” Wes asked over the phone. 

“Nope, I’ve handled it. Just make sure my credit card is paid up. I’m renting a house.” 

“You’re renting a--”

“Later.” 

“Buffy--” 

She hung up the phone. 

“Are you always this brusque with your watchers?” Giles asked. 

“Wouldn’t you know? Weren’t you a watcher?” Buffy asked. 

Giles shook his head. “I haven’t had a charge of my own in years. I was mostly assigned to older potential girls, those it was usually assumed might have already passed the threshold of being chosen. None of my girls was ever the slayer. In fact mostly I watched them graduate high school and go off without me. I probably barely registered for most of them.” 

“Yeah, well, Wes just likes to know I’m not dead. That’s as much as he needs to know.” 

Giles looked thoughtful, but didn’t press the matter, which Buffy was glad about. 

It was another hour before Drusilla seemed well enough to sit up on her own, and then Giles pulled Buffy away as Angel and Spike spoke to her in low voices, explaining about the geas. 

“I feel a little worried in some regards, Miss Summers. I mean, I understand that without this geas we can’t even go forward with our deal, but this spell requires agreement. Informed consent. Drusilla seems a bit non compos mentis, and incapable of… well, anything. Not anything real.”

“Which means we need the geas even more,” Buffy told him. “My grandpa signed his will after five strokes and dementia. It passed the legal requirement. Doesn’t she just need a guardian or something to agree on her behalf? I mean, we’ve got sort of her husband and sort of her father there. Don’t those count?” 

“They’re vampires. Neither of those are listed as legal guardians….” 

“This isn’t legal,” Buffy hissed. “It’s a spell. A spell that will keep a crazy vision-touched vampire from killing me in my sleep. Isn’t that enough? Just do the pre-op. I’m sure Spike or Angel can get her to say the little rhyme.” 

Giles hesitated another moment, but then he nodded. He prepared the parchment for Drusilla’s agreement to the geas. It took less time than for the others, since he was basically just adding her name in. 

“You want me to say the words?” Drusilla asked. Her voice was pure cockney, stronger than Spike’s slightly Americanized accent. “These aren’t nice words. They mean an end to the laughter and the screaming.” 

“I know, baby, but you got to say it,” Spike said. “It’ll get us your cure. You remember that cure we were looking for? Library Leroy says he can help us.” 

“It’s Giles,” Giles said quietly, but he wasn’t really trying to interrupt. 

“Do you want it, Daddy?” Drusilla asked of Angel. “You finally want it of me?” 

“Yes,” Angel said quietly. “Yes, do it for Daddy, little one.” 

“So mote it be?” she asked the two of them. 

“Just put your finger down and say it,” Spike told her. He pricked her forefinger with a tack, and she shivered, set it down on the parchment, and looked into his eyes for a moment. Then her eyes traveled to Angel. 

“So mote it be,” she whispered to him, and then whimpered as the spell promise tickled through her head. “Oh, I don’t like that. The pixies screamed at me, Daddy. Don’t let them hurt me again.”

“It’s done, it’s over, pet, I got you,” Spike said, catching her into his arms. “It’s only for a little bit, love. Just long enough to get you healed. We can make it.” 

She crumpled on the floor and kept whimpering, and Spike stayed close around her and petted her hair. He seemed particularly attentive to her needs, which was odd when her attention seemed to shift to Angel more easily. Well, vampire dynamics weren’t really Buffy’s strong point unless it meant something to help kill them. It didn’t seem fair. Here they were dead, and they had more of a life than Buffy did. Not for the first time, she wondered what the hell she was living for. 

_The sound of your blood in your veins and the taste of dust on your tongue,_ she told herself. She was the slayer. She lived to slay. One day, she’d die from it. But not this day. She was too pissed off at Willow.

That bitch’s blood rain had ruined her favorite shirt. 


	5. Moving In

The world swam in and out of focus, past and future tickling at Drusilla’s brain, present lurking like a demon in the night. First there was the noise in her skull, which lasted and lasted while Spike and her Angel daddy seemed to think it would pass. Trouble was she kept going through it again and again, because nothing ever happened for her only once. She promised not to kill the nice people, and her daddy killed her human mummy, and the little fingers came out one by one and pinched her, and the screaming started in the back of her head, and the blood splashed over her tongue, and she swallowed it down, but it was lamb’s blood, innocent and tasteless, and then Spike was crying, and the slayer was fighting, and she was screaming, and Daddy was bleeding, and then then sun was rising and they carried her down to the darkness again, and she curled up against Spike and shuddered, frightened and hurting, her visions grey and weary. 

“How long has she been like this?” Daddy whispered. 

“Like you ever bothered before,” Spike snapped. 

“I cared, I just… I couldn’t do anything.” 

“Could have helped us feed, maybe.” 

“I’m not going to do that! Your evil is your own doing. I have enough to deal with with mine.” 

Spike grunted. “At least you left us alone while you brooded and moped. Could have been worse.” 

Her daddy sighed. “It’s hard to do evil with this soul. When that balance demon told me what side to take, to be on the side of the slayer, I figured… maybe I could be something else. Maybe make up for all the evil I’ve done.” 

“It doesn’t matter if you saved the whole bloody Titanic, that doesn’t make the people you killed any more alive.” 

“But maybe I could balance it out.” 

“You bloody Uncle Tom. You’re actually going whole hog with this goodness schtick.” 

“You know going evil didn’t work,” Angel said. 

“You’re not good,” Spike said. “You can’t just _decide_ to be good. You’re a demon, dammit, and you’re going to stay that way.” 

Daddy didn’t answer for a long time. “If you’d seen her two years ago, when she was new, before being the slayer hardened her… you’d know why.” 

“Know what? That you like them blonde, young, and innocent? Yeah, what else is new.” 

“It wasn’t that.” 

“Two years ago she would have been what, fifteen? Age of your favorite victim. Don’t tell me that wasn’t a factor. She’s all blonde like Darla, and if she was still perky and innocent? Yeah. Sounds like just the kind of meat you’d target.” 

“It’s not like that. I didn’t want to eat her.” 

“Liar.” 

“I am not.” 

“You still want to eat her.” 

“I do not!” 

“I want to eat her.” 

“Yeah, I figured that,” Angel snapped. “But you’re not going to. We’re going to help her.” He took in a deep breath. “We have to help her.” 

“Don’t cry, Daddy,” Drusilla gasped, sitting up. She stared Angel full in the face. “It’ll all turn out wrong in the end, you’ll see.” 

Spike reached up and stroked her hair, muttering soothing words until she lay down again. Her gentle knight was soft and twisted beneath her, and he stopped talking and sang pretty ditties until the world faded again, and she could see Willow torturing a woman in Drusilla’s own bed, and Xander watching as he leaned against the four poster, and that was wrong, because now she was on the cold ground with the hellmouth blowing in her face, making her stronger but her bones ached with the direct blast, she turned her head away from that vision and found herself in what had to be the past, and she dreamed of her grandmummy taunting her daddy, until Daddy staked her in the night, and she cringed away from that horror to listen to the librarian speaking above her to the sweet, sweet boys with the white light over the shoulders. 

“I’ll need your van tonight, Oz,” the librarian was saying. “We need to take Angel and two other vampires somewhere safer.”

“Since when do we provide an all inclusive taxi for vampire outings?” the dog boy asked. 

“These two are under a geas not to harm humans for a year,” the librarian told him and the one who smelled of sweat. “I arranged the spell myself.” 

“Well, good to know we won’t be next on the menu,” the dog said. “But again, why are we helping them?” 

“They’re helping us. The woman, Drusilla, she can probably help us track down Willow and Xander. In the meantime, can you and Larry help me with this research? I’ve found the DuLac Manuscript, but I’m having trouble translating it. I was thinking it might be referenced in some of these other texts.” 

Drusilla let her mind drift from there and back to the whispers in the back of her mind. Sharp toothed little pixies whizzed around and danced just out of her reach, and a child laughed, one of her little nieces, but no, Daddy had killed all of them, and all she had left was him and Spike, and usually just Spike, because Daddy cried and hid in the dark from his own absent reflection, and now what else was happening? The slayer was back in the library, and someone was shouting at her, “Who are you? I don’t allow visitors to my school, what are you doing here?” 

“This is Buffy Summers,” said the librarian’s voice from above. “Is there some problem here?” 

“Yes. This Buffy Summers isn’t part of my student body.” 

“But she, uh, she is.” The librarian sounded flustered. “She’s enrolling today. Aren’t you, Buffy?” 

“I am?” 

“She’s just finishing up her senior year here at Sunnydale High.” 

“I am?” 

“She’s part of a school exchange from… uh… Cleveland.” 

“Oh. I am,” she said. “Totally.” She sounded far from enthused. “And you are?” 

“Principal Snyder,” said the little man voice. “And I have a hard time believing that anyone would be keen to transfer to here, even from Cleveland.” 

“You’d be surprised how rough Cleveland can be,” the slayer said. 

“You moved here?” 

“Just got a house. Housing prices are a dream. See? Keys.” She jingled them. 

“Well. We’ll see. But if I don’t get a school transcript from you by the end of tomorrow, I don’t want to see you around here again.” 

“Whatever,” the slayer said. 

The principal’s voice faded from the library, and the slayer said. “I wasn’t lying. I got the house. 1630 Revello Drive. Here’s a key for you for when I die, and Anyanka has another. She’s moving in some beds. There’s some furniture there, but not a lot. Most of it’s crappy Ikea junk.”

“Do you always do that?” the librarian asked. 

“Do what?” 

“Speak casually about when you’ll die?” 

“Well… yeah. Are the vampires ready? I mean, it’s early, so we’ll have to cover them up, but that means Willow and Xander won’t be able to get the drop on us at sunset.” 

“They’re down by the entrance to the hellmouth, in the boiler room. We’ll have to wait until school closes so that we can use Oz’s van. That’s only, uh, half an hour away. Unless we use your rental car.” 

“Gave that back. Price on it was insane. Got myself a Kawasaki.” 

“A… demon?” 

“A motorcycle. I can sell it again when I’m done with this place.” 

“Not very practical, is it?” he asked. 

“Hey, it’s fast, maneuverable, and has good resale value. It’s all I need.” 

“And you bought a motorcycle and rented yourself a house all in a day?”

“The bike’s used, and we need the house. And who are you, my mom?”

“Well, no,” he said. “You just seem rather young for….” 

“I’m not young,” the slayer said. “I’m the slayer.” 

“I’m sorry to presume, Miss Summers. On that note, I’ve found some reference to….” His voice faded as he led the slayer out of the library, and Drusilla opened her eyes. 

“They’re coming,” she told her pretty men. Angel woke up, and Spike, who hadn’t been sleeping but watching her, caressed her hair again. 

“It’ll be all right, pet,” he said. 

“But they’re coming. We’ll have to face the sun,” she said. 

“We’re safe here, petal, don’t fret any.” 

“ _Here comes the sun, do do do do,_ ” Drusilla sang. She cringed. “This’ll be so hard. I want an infant.” 

“Not today, sweetheart,” Spike said, regret tingeing his voice. “Not until after you’re all better.” 

She whimpered and whined, pouting to herself, and Spike hugged her around the shoulders. “It’s a hard road, pet, but it's worth it for your cure, yeah? Don’t you want to be strong again?” 

“You won’t be strong,” she whispered, echoes of tears tickling at the edges of her vision. “None of us will be strong again.” 

“Don’t fret, pet. Come on, hold on.” 

“All right,” came the slayer’s voice. “All evil bloodsuckers better get ready to roast. We’re heading to somewhere safe.” She was carrying three moving blankets in her arms, and she tossed them to Drusilla, Spike, and Angel. “You’re all invited to my house.” 

“Said the spider to the flies,” Drusilla said low. 

She half expected the slayer to be irritated by that, but instead to Drusilla’s horror the slayer only smiled. “Time to go,” was all she said. 

***

Getting the vampires into the house wasn’t too difficult. Angel ran in first. Spike carried Drusilla in under her blanket like a new bride, then set her down and checked her for burns. Buffy led the vampires to the basement, then went up to check on Anyanka. 

Anyanka had overseen the delivery of the mattresses, and had made a list of other items they were going to need for the household -- sheets and towels, dishes, silverware, garbage bin liners. Buffy looked longingly at the shopping list. There was a time going shopping would have been fun… she rarely had time for that sort of thing these days. But they _did_ need some stuff if they were going to use this as their home base. 

“Oz? Giles? Can we use the van?” she asked. 

Giles checked the time. “We’ve got an hour, I suppose. Then curfew sets in, and the stores will be closing. And the Squad and I usually do a patrol just after curfew, see if we can rescue any stragglers. Will you be joining us?” 

“No,” Buffy said. “And you shouldn’t be going out, either. I need you to find that cure for the seer.” 

“I’ll get back to that later tonight,” Giles said. “But the Squad can’t just abandon our duties.” 

“Fighting vampires isn’t _your_ duty, it’s mine,” Buffy said. “You’ll just get yourselves killed.” 

Giles raised his eyebrow. “We’ve managed to hold our own fairly well until now. What will you be doing?” 

“Looking for Willow, what else?” 

“By yourself?” 

“One girl in all the world, buddy. That’s how it works.” 

“It just seems… well, we could always help you look for Willow. Oz is good at finding things, and Larry is a fairly solid pugilist.” 

“I’m searching for Willow on my bike. If you boys want to get yourselves killed, don’t make me watch it.” 

“Y-yes,” Giles said. “Yes. Do you still need these items?” 

“Yeah. I guess most we can get some sort of shop mart or box store. Wes is gonna be pissed, but fuck him.” 

“Your watcher?” 

“Yeah, he gets pissy about the expense account. But whatever. Come on.” 

They left the vampires to wait for dusk and took Anyanka shopping with them. Turned out the ex-demon had a good eye for a bargain, and a quick eye for quality goods. They hit housewares, then the grocery store, picked up some blood for the vampires, and by then the sun was setting so they went back to the base. Buffy left Anyanka and the boys to manage the goods while she checked on the vampires. 

They were all in the basement. Drusilla and Spike seemed to be sleeping, curled up twined together like happy puppies. Angel was sitting on his mattress, and looked up when Buffy came down. “Buffy,” he said, as if her name carried the weight of ages. 

“Got some sheets. Anyanka’s got them upstairs.” 

“Is Giles with you?”

“Yeah. They’re going patrolling, they said. They said you helped them.” 

“Well, sometimes….” 

“Well, sometimes had better be now,” Buffy snapped. 

“I thought… I’d help you.” 

“I don’t need help,” Buffy said. “They do.” 

He got that sheepish puppy look again. It annoyed her. He was cute, he knew he was cute, and he _used_ that fucking look. “Please let me help you,” he said. 

“You help me by helping them,” Buffy told him. “You know, I don’t know if you’re a good guy or not. But if you want me to believe it, you guys are gonna have to prove it. All of you.”

“Spike and Drusilla… they’re… not like me. They don’t have souls.” 

“They’re exactly like you,” Buffy said. “They’re vampires. And I just put a fucking gallon of blood in the fridge for you guys, so I’m too nauseated to listen to your bullshit. So earn your keep. Keep those boys alive.” 

“Where are you going?” 

“Out!” She went up the stairs without looking behind her. “Angel’s coming,” she said to Giles and Oz, who were helping Anyanka unpack bags. Buffy stuck a stake in her waist band, shoved her mini-crossbow in her backpack, and went out into the growing night. 

Five hours later she returned back to home base, frustrated and annoyed. She’d gotten nowhere. The vampires all seemed to have gone to ground. She’d even checked the stupid cemeteries, and found nothing to slay. She knew the vampires were there, she could feel the oppressive weight of them -- unless that was the hellmouth itself -- but none of them showed themselves. And despite Willow’s flamboyant display the night before, she had stopped advertising herself, so it seemed Buffy was still going to need Drusilla to track her down. 

She rode back to her home base, and knew instantly that something was wrong. A roaring, pulsing cacophony rumbled in her bones before she even got her helmet off. She parked the Kawasaki and swam through the noise to the house, where she wrestled with the key to get in. 

Drusilla was languishing on the couch, staring at nothing. Buffy was taken aback by her at first -- she wasn’t breathing and looked a little dead -- but then the vampiress looked at her and laughed. She was even more disturbing animated. Buffy left her and stormed down into the basement, whence the music seemed to be coming from. 

“What in the fuck are you doing?” she shouted at Spike, who sat in the middle of the floor. 

Spike glanced up. “Huh?” 

Buffy kicked over bubble wrap and cardboard. The entire basement seemed to be packing paper and wooden slats, and Spike was holding a complicated set of what looked like assembly instructions, still bobbing his head to the ghastly din that was the Dead Kennedys roaring through the room. “WHAT! IN THE FUCK! ARE YOU DOING?” she shouted over the music. 

“What’s it look like I’m doing? Ruling Spain?” 

The music yelled at her in slurred accents. “ _I’m too drunk to fuck,”_ it roared. “ _I’m too drunk to fuck.”_ Buffy scanned the basement until she found the CD boom box he had set up by the washing machine. She waded through the packing material and scattered parts until she got to it, and then slammed her hand down on top of it, crushing it. A gruesome whine replaced the mad music, and she slammed it again. The sound stopped, and an acrid smell wafted from a thin line of smoke that issued from the machine. 

Spike stood up, wooden parts clattering from his lap. “What in the fuck did you do that for?” 

“You woke up the whole damned neighborhood.” 

“So? What are they gonna do about it, call the cops?” Spike chuckled. 

“In any other town, they would!” Buffy snapped. 

“Yeah, well. That doesn’t happen here. Even the cops know better than to cater to a noise complaint.” 

Buffy strode through the debris to glare into Spike’s face. “Are you telling me you’d do something to the police?” 

“Are you telling me you care?”

“You are only still alive because I care about shit like that,” Buffy snapped. She considered threatening him, but she didn’t want him realizing she could still beat him bloody until she needed to. Instead she gestured at the chaos surrounding her. “What is all this shit? Where did you get it all?”

He opened his mouth, hesitated, then tilted his head back. “It was a gift from a good samaritan,” he said with a smirk. 

She wasn’t that dumb. “You mean you robbed a furniture store.” 

“Would I do such a nefarious thing?” 

“And these?” Buffy said. She reached down and picked up a clanking set of manacles. “Good samaritan gift you with these, too?” 

“Raided the Bronze.” 

“You went back to the Bronze?” 

“Keep your shirt on, place was still deserted. Unless you count the stiffs.” 

“And what, pray tell, do you plan to do with a set of steel manacles in my base?” 

Spike shrugged. “They’re for Dru.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Told you, they’re for Dru. She likes to be chained up now and then.” 

“You’re insane!” She tossed the manacles against the wall. “You know, we need Dru, we don’t need you.” 

“You’re gonna get anywhere with Dru, you’re going to need me.” 

“Oh, I don’t know. She seemed to listen to Angel well enough.” 

“Shut up,” was all Spike said. He pushed through the packing paper to the boombox. “You realize I’m gonna have to go get another one, now.” He popped open the top with a snap. He had to break the lid to do it. “Oh, and you cracked the CD, bitch.” 

“You can find more fucking music,” she snapped, though she didn’t actually mind the Dead Kennedys in their proper place. “This is my fucking base. It’s supposed to be a fucking secret, and you’re fucking blaring to the fucking cosmos where the hell we fucking are!” 

“You’re fucking getting in my fucking face, you fucking bitch,” Spike snapped back at her. “I can’t keep Dru on a mattress on the fucking basement floor, for your fucking information. She needs satin and lace and luxuries, and you don’t want to know what she’s fucking like if she doesn’t fucking get them!” 

“Right now she’s upstairs staring at a fucking corner. I think she looks fine. This is not a luxury hotel!” 

“It had better turn into one right fucking fast, if you know what’s good for everyone. Living on the floor like an animal _turns_ her into an animal, and if you don’t play your cards right you won’t get a sensible word out of her for weeks.” 

“Where the fuck do you think I’m sleeping, on a heart shaped water bed? No, we’ve all got mattresses on the floor, and you’re damned lucky I got them.” She looked around the room. “Wait a minute. Where’s the second one?” 

“Second what?” 

“Mattress. I got one for you two, and one for Angel.” 

“Angel’s is upstairs. I won’t have him in here with Dru.” 

“What?”

“Told you, it’s upstairs.” 

“Are you seriously telling me you’re playing musical bedrooms in _my_ home base?” 

“Look, there’s three bedrooms upstairs, and you weren’t using the other one. You don’t know what Angel’s like. I can’t stand him in the same room.” 

“Oh, I’ve got a good idea what Angel’s like,” Buffy said, rolling her eyes. “That’s why I don’t want him in the bedroom connected to mine.” 

“Well, move the other bird, then,” Spike said. “But don’t make me live down here with Angel.” 

Buffy glared at him. “Fine.” He had a point. She did have the extra room. “But you gotta quit with the loud music. We have to keep this place sort of secret. If you even have any idea what that means.” 

“I’ve been sneaking around since before you were born, goldilocks.” 

“And I’ve killed over a thousand vampires just as annoying as you, so why don’t we quit with the dick measuring, fair? Mine’s bigger. Get over it.” 

Spike chuckled, a low sound like a purr. 

“And quit stealing,” she added, that purr making her uncomfortable. “I don’t give a shit, but if anyone tracks it to this place, then I’ll have to deal with it.” 

“I need stuff for Dru.” 

“Looks like you have a full bedroom set down here. Isn’t that enough?” 

“I have two lamps, a bed, and a side table. And a squawk box, or I did until you smashed it. Look, I lost everything but my car the other day, and Dru’s weak. She’s got particular tastes, and I’m really not taking the piss when I say she gets mental.” 

“Well, tell me what she needs. We’ll do something. But I’m not going to cater to her every whim, either.” She glared around the room. “And clean this place up.” 

“I still have to assemble the bed,” Spike said. “Not as if I could hire moving men, I had to grab something I could fit atop my car.” 

“Is that that ugly black thing out front?” 

“Don’t rag on the DeSoto.” 

“Put it in the garage. It’s too conspicuous.” 

Spike rolled his eyes. “Any more orders, your majesty?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “I prefer _my liege._ ” 

Spike gave another one of those chuckles and shook his head, and Buffy left him, frustrated with herself. He was a jerk. He was a bald-faced, evil, murderous jerk. And for all that, she liked him a lot better than she did anyone else she’d met in Sunnydale so far. 

***

  
  


“So you are telling me she actually doesn’t _have_ any school records?” Giles asked over the phone. 

“Not that I’m aware of. I believe the last time she was in school was… um… I’m unsure if I have those records here….” 

Buffy’s watcher sounded completely useless. Giles wasn’t surprised that she dismissed Wyndam-Pryce so easily. 

“What exactly _do_ you know?” 

“Well, what was supplied to me by her last watcher, uh, Monica Stiles.” 

Giles frowned. “I thought her watcher was Gavin Naxon?” 

“Buffy’s been through, um, ah… five. Five watchers including myself.” Wesley sounded as surprised by this as Giles was. Was he looking at her file for the first time as he spoke? 

“Well, what about before she was chosen? Was she going to school then?” 

“Yes. Yes, she was. Here, I have her file for a Hemery High School? That was where Mr. Merrick arranged to contact her.” 

“Yes. Excellent. Where was that?” 

“LA,” said Wyndam-Pryce. 

“And she never went to school after that?” 

“There’s something from Mr. Naxon about her dropping out.” 

“From where?” 

“Um… I don’t have that information. I believe they were stationed in New York at the time.” 

“Fine,” Giles said. “Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, you are aware that Miss Summers has established a base here?” 

“Yes, she said something along those lines.” 

“Well, the information we need may take some time to research.” 

“Are you certain of that?” 

“Yes,” Giles snapped. “This is not a simple matter. The hellmouth breeds evil and draws demons. There was a Master here that has infested Sunnydale with vampires. A vampire sorceress has eluded Buffy and has already called for her death.” 

“Why have I never heard of Sunnydale before now, if this has all been such a debacle?” Wyndam-Pryce asked. 

“It appears there was the influence of a demon at play, which, my theory is, created a blind spot for the watchers around Sunnydale. I myself am unable to remember why I came here in the first place.” 

“That will happen when you do too many drugs.” 

“Excuse me?” Giles snapped. 

“Sorry, my understanding was that you were let go from the Watchers Council due to some disturbing incidents in your youth.” 

“While we’re talking disturbing incidents,” Giles said, unwilling to be goaded, “are you aware that Miss Summers has embraced her death? She speaks of it as matter-of-factly as she would the sun rising. She is desperate for some guidance.” 

“Not from what I’ve seen of her,” Wyndam-Pryce said. “She’s a competent and determined young woman. She came through her Cruciamentum with flying colors.”

Giles’s nose itched. He wanted to clean his glasses at this man. That ritual had always seemed so barbaric.

“Are you satisfied, Mr. Giles?” 

“Yes, I suppose. I’ll get what I need from her school in LA.” 

“I’ll see if there are any further records available here. I trust you’ll stay in contact?” 

“As much as Miss Summers wishes me to,” Giles said, nettled by the man. He hung up the phone. 

He turned back to the metatexts which referenced the DuLac Manuscript. The manuscript itself was useless. It appeared to be in Latin, but wasn’t. The words translated to gobbledygook, the ones that were even words at all, and he was no further along in trying to organize them into something useful. He and the boys had already gone patrolling after they’d dropped the vampires off at Miss Summers’s new residence. The house was sadly neglected. It was hard to tell the state of the windows, with the blood rain having left everything a little brown and dingy, but the lawn was overgrown, and the window box on the roof was full of weeds. She didn’t seem to mind, but Giles had already asked Larry to do a little yard work on the place after school the next day. 

Angel had taken off on his own after patrol. He was always mysterious, and apparently a month being tortured hadn’t changed that aspect of his personality. He said he’d make it back to Buffy’s on his own. 

Giles frowned at the manuscript. The idea of a spell for restoring a failing vampire went against everything in his training. Vampires were supposed to be killed. But he had already shifted his thinking regarding Angel, and for the next year or so Drusilla was no danger to human beings. Was it really right to restore her?

Well, he had worked with demons in the past, and Angel said they needed her. He supposed he was already hip deep in this debacle. He might as well see it through. He would continue to consult with Miss Summers as they proceeded with the mission. And with that he closed his books, and headed up to bed. 


	6. Getting Started

Angel was a little put out to find that when he got back to Buffy’s house, she’d locked the doors for the night. He had to knock and knock, and when no one answered he crept up to the second floor and tapped on Buffy’s window. 

Buffy had claimed the master bedroom, and she was sorting clothes into the closet from a suitcase. She didn’t seem to have a lot. When the tap came at her window, she ducked, rolled, and disappeared behind the door of the bathroom. Two seconds she came back out armed with her crossbow, pointing it squarely at the window. 

“Hang on,” Angel said through the glass. “It’s only me.” 

Buffy glared at him. “Stalker much?”

“Let me in.” 

“Go to the damned front door like a human fucking being,” she told him, and stalked away from the bedroom, crossbow still in hand. 

Irritation struck Angel. It would have been nice to have the conversation he wanted to have next in her bedroom, somewhere intimate and soft, but no. He had to climb down from the roof and go all the way back to the front door, where Buffy finally unlocked it and let him into the hall. She did not, he noticed, issue him a second invitation. He’d been being polite, respecting locks and everything, but fine. 

“I’m glad I caught you up,” Angel said. 

“I don’t sleep at night,” Buffy told him. 

“You don’t?” 

“Slayers don’t get that kind of luxury,” she said. 

“Well, that’s… uh. Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot.” 

“Okay,” Buffy said. 

“I wanted to tell you that I believe in you.” 

“I’m not a unicorn. I don’t vanish if you don’t.” 

“Look, I’m trying to make peace, here.” 

Buffy stared at him. “You hear about me from some creepy demon who is more concerned with your destiny than mine. You stalk me at my home when I’m fifteen. You lay in wait for me here in Sunnydale like some spider, and act like it’s somehow my fault you didn’t achieve your destiny. Well, let me take this opportunity to not care.” 

“I got you something,” Angel said. He pulled the box out of his pocket and handed it to her. 

Buffy opened the box and found the silver cross inside it. He was rather proud of himself for that. He’d had to find his car -- which fortunately hadn’t been towed -- and leave town to find a store that stayed open all night to get it. All the stores in Sunnydale firmly shut and barred their doors at night. It wasn’t as nice as the one he’d first gotten for her, that Willow and the Master had taken from him when they captured him. But he’d managed to find something. Fortunately crosses were fairly popular in the areas surrounding Sunnydale, and he’d found something at a gas station about an hour away. He was pretty sure it wasn’t real silver, but it was nice. 

“Gee, thanks,” Buffy said. “Like I never got one of these before.” 

“It’s a peace offering,” Angel said. “It’s important to stay protected.” 

“Good idea,” Buffy said. She opened the front door and hung the new cross on a tiny nail, probably there in the door for Christmas wreaths or something. “One more protection.” 

“That will… uh… make it harder for us to get in,” he said. 

“That’s not a problem,” Buffy said.

“Do you plan to lock the doors all the time?” 

“Giles, Anyanka and me all have keys. We’ll let you in when you knock.” 

“Is that really fair, if we’re living here?” 

“You haven’t proved yourselves to me yet, so yeah, I think it is.” She turned away from him and headed back up the stairs. “Oh, and Spike moved you out of the basement. You get the small bedroom. I moved Anyanka.” 

“Does that room even have curtains?” Angel called after her. 

“Get your own curtains,” Buffy said. “Sleep in the closet tomorrow.” 

Angel growled low. This hard nosed girl was not the Buffy he’d thought she’d be. She was supposed to be just a kid. This was a warrior woman, hard and tough, and she had no patience with him. He followed Buffy upstairs, but she’d closed the door to her bedroom, and he didn’t dare bother her again. He checked out what was meant to be his room. There weren’t any curtains, but his mattress had a set of sheets set up on it. They were dark red, and would probably protect him from the sun. He hung up the top sheet over the windows, and then didn’t know what to do with himself. So he went down to the basement to check on Dru. 

Drusilla was dressing herself in bubble wrap while Spike made up a four poster bed that had somehow appeared while Angel was gone. “What are you doing?” 

“Making things pleasant for Dru,” Spike said. “And this isn’t your room anymore, so you can clear out.” 

“Dru? How are you doing?” Angel asked. 

“I have pretty new clothes,” she said distantly. “Do you see?” She held out a sheet of torn bubble wrap. 

Angel hung his head. He was no use to Dru when she was like this. When he’d still been evil looking at Drusilla had been a confirmation of his greatest deed. Now she made him feel slightly sick. He cared about her, but he hated looking at her, hearing her madness, and this illness she was suffering from made him feel even worse. “I’ll leave you to it,” he told Spike and Drusilla, and he went up to his room. 

The house was full of people, vampires he’d known and a slayer he’d wanted to know. And Angel felt entirely alone. 

***

Someone knocked on Buffy’s bedroom door. Couldn’t they leave her the fuck alone? She rolled over on her mattress and stuck her head under the pillow. “Go away.”

“Miss Summers? Miss Summers, it’s Giles.” 

“Ugh.” She’d just gotten to sleep. She got up and unlocked the door -- individual door locks had been on her shopping list last night. She wasn’t dumb enough not to at least have the warning of a breaking door if she was going to be living with vampires, suckers or not. “Where’s the bad guy?” 

“Pardon me?” 

“Did you find Willow, or is some other demon up at this ridiculous hour?” 

“It’s nearly seven thirty,” Giles said. “I thought you’d be ready.” 

“Ready for what? I just got to bed.” 

“Just now?” He looked at his watch. “Um, ready for school. I thought you understood that you would be enrolled in Sunnydale High.” 

Buffy stared at him in shock. She honestly thought he was kidding, but he had such an earnest look on his face. “Why?” she finally asked. 

“Well, to… to learn,” he said. “To educate your mind.” 

“My mind only needs to know how to kill nasties.” 

“To remain incognito,” Giles said then. “If a young woman arrives in a town like Sunnydale and doesn’t go to school, every vampire in town will know she’s the slayer.” 

“They already know,” Buffy said. “Buffy dies. Right up there in the sky. I’m going to bed.” 

“Miss Summers. You need to have more in your life than merely thoughts of death.” 

“My death, your death, their deaths,” Buffy grumbled. “That’s all there is for me.” 

“No,” he said earnestly. “That isn’t.” He paused. “The hellmouth is in the school. Principal Snyder will not allow you to move freely about the school unless you are enrolled. I have an excuse to be there, as does Larry and Oz. I cannot include you if you’re not part of the student body. You’re young, clever, still of student age. It makes sense to--”

“All right, all right,” Buffy groaned. “Shut up. Let me get my damned clothes on.” She shut the door in Giles’s face and went to her closet, where she put on her fatigues and a proper shirt. She always slept in clothes she could just roll out of bed in, -- usually sweats and a tee -- but she still had some vestiges of her previous life in her. The LA girl with the keen fashion sense hadn’t been killed completely. She kept her combat boots polished, picked shirts that showed off her goods, and she still kept her hair long, despite Stiles’ recommendation that she cut it short for safety. She ran a brush through it and put it back in its braid before stomping out of the bedroom and down the stairs. 

Anyanka and Giles were waiting for her in the kitchen. “He’s making me go, too,” Anyanka said. “Apparently I’m still enrolled. I tried to tell him, what can I learn in one year of high school that I couldn’t learn in a thousand years of being a vengeance demon? But he says I’ll get farther in this human life that I apparently have to lead if I earn a high school diploma. So I guess I’m going.” 

“How much of this school thing do you expect me to do?” Buffy asked. “Because I need to sleep sometime. I get that you’ve never been a real watcher before, but slayers aren’t so superman we don’t need sleep.” 

“I assumed you’d sleep after patrolling in the evening. It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t sleep at night.” 

“You have to walk the streets at night,” Buffy said. “Do I need books or something? I didn’t get school girl shit.” 

“I don’t have any of my school accessories, either,” Anyanka said. “I had them in the other timeline, but they all seem to have vanished when the dimensions switched. Giles says my cover story apartment is all filled with slurg demons, so maybe they took it all? I don’t know.” 

“Slurg demons?” Buffy looked around for a stake. “They’re not hard to kill.” 

“There’s also no reason to kill them,” Giles said. “They aren’t dangerous to humans. They can’t eat anything bigger than a cat.” 

“Yeah, but they’re demons,” Buffy said. “Always good to keep my hand in.” 

Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief. The guy actually had a handkerchief. 

“Miss Summers,” he said after a moment, sliding his glasses back on. “I recognize that things are going to seem very different for you. Sunnydale isn’t like other towns. Many demons live and move freely. If anyone tried to kill all of them, even a slayer, they’d exhaust themselves within a week. We need to prepare for a long sojourn, and you must maintain your strength. Yes, among other things, that will mean sleep. But it will also require you keeping your mind limber and your opinions open. We need help from these vampires we’re working with, for instance. We may work with witches, other demons, creatures summoned from the nether realms.” 

“Me,” Anyanka said. 

“You,” Giles said to her. 

“And you,” Buffy added, looking at Giles. 

“What about me?” 

“Well, you’re a… what are you? Wizard, warlock, sorcerer?” 

“Dabbler,” Giles said. “I have learned a few spells very well, but I am poor with new magic, and powerful spells are beyond my strengths. The geas I cast is one I’ve had to use with demons I have worked with in the past, which is why I was confident in my ability to cast it. As for your school books, I have notebooks and school supplies in the library. If we hurry, we can collect them.” 

He bustled Buffy and Anyanka into an ancient-looking Citroen and drove them to the school, where he set Anyanka to resume her recent school schedule, and took Buffy to the office to receive one. “We don’t have records for her,” said the office manager. 

“Yes, she just needs a standard senior schedule. Electives can be randomized.”

“They’re going to have to be, if we don’t know what she’s done.” 

“We’ll have records by the end of the day,” Giles said. “But she just needs to finish out the year.” 

“Fine,” the office manager said. “We have plenty of openings. We had two more deaths over hiatus. Nancy Parkington and Cordelia Chase. Their bodies were found stored by the incinerator this morning. You knew Nancy a little, didn’t you?” 

“Yes,” Giles said grimly. “Yes, I did.” He collected the schedule and led Buffy out of the office. 

“Incinerator?” Buffy asked. 

“That’s where Snyder insisted bodies found on school grounds be taken, until we can contact their families,” Giles told Buffy. “The incinerator room.” 

“Why there?” 

“It was my idea,” Giles said. “The door locks from the outside, and the walls are concrete. If any of the bodies rise as vampires, the Library Squad and I can contain them there until we can dispose of them.” 

The idea disturbed Buffy. Giles was right. Sunnydale wasn’t quite like any place she’d ever been before. Not that she hadn’t seen places overrun by vampires to the extent where people just accepted there would be bodies -- the tunnels of the Mole People were pretty damn bad -- but she wasn’t used to other people fighting them. She was used to people living in denial, running in terror, or simply accepting their fate. She was the one who fought the vampires. The idea of a little squad of teenagers led by a high school librarian actively fighting for the whole town’s survival, even in the face of untold losses…. Well. It affected her. 

“Next time one rises, call me,” Buffy told him. “I’ll help.” 

“You didn’t seem interested in helping last night,” Giles said. 

“I was hoping you’d just go home last night,” Buffy said. “Besides, you were patrolling for stragglers. I was hunting vampires.” 

“There doesn’t have to be a difference.” 

Buffy said nothing and looked down at her schedule. “This says first period is History. Are they really going to expect me to know anything?” 

“As you’re new to the school, I doubt they’ll expect you to catch up quickly. Don’t worry about your grades. Just get to know people, learn what you can, live. That’s the important part,” Giles told her. “Just be a girl for a while.” 

“I can’t do that,” Buffy told him. At the look on his face she found herself adding, “But I can fake it.” 

Giles rewarded her with a charming smile, which surprised her. Giles was handsome. Like, he was icky too old, but he was cute behind his glasses. Weird that he’d waste his life with teenage kids, school systems, and vampires when he had looks and magic on his side. It made Buffy want to draw out that smile of his again. Maybe she didn’t hate Giles, after all. Even though school was going to be a real drag. “Fine,” she said. “You have that notebook?” 

“Here,” Giles said, sliding it out from under his arm. 

Buffy slid a pencil into the spiral binding and slipped the schedule between the pages. “Okay. If I can play a waitress, a tourist, and a prostitute, I guess I can play a school girl. Here goes.” 

She headed into her first class, and so she missed that the smile on Giles’s face had turned into a look of wide eyed horror. 

***

Joyce was just sitting down to her morning coffee when the phone rang. “Who is calling at this hour?” she said to herself. She’d lived alone long enough that talking to herself no longer seemed strange. She picked up the phone, expecting a telemarketer or someone from work. “Yes?” 

“Mrs. Summers?” 

“Ms,” Joyce corrected him. “I am she.” 

“Oh, good. Hello, yes.” The voice had a British accent, and seemed a little flustered. “You don’t know me, but I wanted to speak with you. I’m Buffy’s, uh -- you are the mother of Buffy Summers, are you not?” 

“You know Buffy?” Joyce sloshed her coffee cup pushing it away, and scrambled for a pen in case there was any number or name or address to write down. “Is she all right? Is she alive?” 

“Yes, she is. You… weren’t aware of that?” 

“No! Who is this? How did you find her? Where is she?” 

“Please, calm down, Ms. Summers.” Joyce took a deep breath and tried to do that, but it was next to impossible. Her heart was in her throat. “My name is Mr. Giles, I am the librarian at Buffy’s school. Or the school she’s trying to enroll in. I contacted her last school in the state, a Hemery High, and that’s how I found your name. May we talk, please?” 

_Mr. Giles,_ Joyce wrote down. “Buffy’s going to a school? In California? When did she get back to California? Does Hank know?” 

“Am I to understand you’ve had no contact with Miss Summers in some time?” 

“Buffy left her father’s house when she was sixteen, and I haven’t heard a word from her since. She is alive? She’s all right? You’re sure?” 

“I think I need to know a little bit more about what happened when she was sixteen, Ms. Summers.” 

“I need to know more about you. Who are you? Mr. Giles the librarian, but I don’t understand. Why are you calling? Does Hank know you’re in contact with Buffy?” 

“Hank is your husband?” Giles asked. 

“Ex-husband. He had custody, but he kicked her out of the house when she was sixteen, and she just vanished. I mean vanished. I contacted Missing Persons, we thought she might be dead. Her father thought she’d come back in a couple of weeks with her tail between her legs, but we never heard another word from her, never. And she’s with you? Now? She’s safe?” 

“Buffy has decided to spend some time here in California to… manage… some things. As I work with her I decided it would be prudent to enroll her in school here, but I’m having trouble piecing together her history. You say she was abandoned at sixteen?” 

“I never abandoned her, but I was here, in LA. She disappeared in New York. Oh, I’m so glad you called. Is Buffy there? Can I speak to her?” 

“No, I’m calling without her knowledge. And it might be best to keep it that way for a little while, Ms. Summers. Buffy has been through some… trauma. I’m not entirely sure what kind. I’ve only been in contact with her for a few days.”

“Where is she? Please tell me, Mr. Giles. You can have no idea what it means to me.” 

“If I tell you, you must promise me not to try and contact her until I’ve had some time to earn her trust. I very much fear that if I drop too much on her at once, she’ll bolt. She’s had some… unpleasant experiences in the last few years. But I believe that putting her in contact with her family is the best course. You say you did not have custody?”

“No, but I’ll call Hank. It’s not like I don’t have visitation.” 

“But Buffy is over eighteen now, isn’t she?” 

“No.” 

“She’s not? But I have her records here from Hemery--”

“There was a mix up with her birth certificate back when Buffy was born. She’s had the wrong birthday on half her documentation ever since, anything that came from the state. And they can’t seem to decide when she was born, either, it dances all over the place. But I remember. Buffy’s birthday isn’t until after the New Year. January 19th.” 

“That explains some of the documentation I have,” Giles said. “And makes this even harder. You claim you do have some visitation rights?” 

“Yes.”

“If I were to arrange for a little Christmas party, could you find the time to come up in order to reconnect with your daughter? Be aware, she is a little skittish, and likely would have changed a great deal since you last spoke with her.” 

“Oh, please, Mr. Giles. Please tell me where my daughter is.” 

“Would you please refrain from telling her father? If he threw her out of her house, she likely has conflicting emotions about him, and I would like to keep this first reconnection pleasant and quiet.” 

“I’ll do whatever you think is best if it gets me back in touch with my daughter.” 

“All right. I’ll tell you where we’re located. But please don’t overreact, Ms. Summers.” Joyce steeled herself. _She’s in jail. She’s in a half-way house. She’s in rehab._ She knew she could manage anything. “She’s in Sunnydale.” 

Joyce nearly dropped the phone. 


	7. That Was Weird

Spike lay in wait for the slayer. 

It wasn’t the way he’d expected it to be. Whenever he dreamed and fantasized and remembered hunting slayers, it wasn’t waiting in her own house with a shopping list and blanket in his hands, but that’s where he was. He tried waiting in the kitchen, but the dodgy curtains the place had made it uncomfortable, and he started to steam, so he had to wait in the stairwell, hoping Angelus didn’t wake up, and fearing that Dru might not. She’d gone into a kind of cataleptic dream state where he could put her in whatever position he wanted, and she’d stay there. He’d curled her up in the bed, but he needed to connect her to the real world, and she was too weak. She needed things, sensual things, tactile things, sparkly things, things that would drag her attention to her body and sensation. Things that would bring her back to him. 

The slayer was yawning wide as she opened the back door to the house. “I need to go shopping,” he called out to her. 

Buffy blinked and looked for the voice. “Spike,” she said, sounding annoyed. “What in the world are you talking about?”

"Would you come over here?” he said from the door of the basement. “The curtains in this house are bollocks.” 

Buffy sighed and came closer to the basement door, blocking the sun. “What do you need, Spike?”

“I need to go shopping. I need clothes, Dru needs clothes, and this place needs some creature comforts, stat.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like good enough blinds we can move about about the house during the day. And shampoo. Dru needs a shower. I wrote up a list.” 

The slayer stared at it without taking it from his hands. “I’m not your Sears catalog! I’m not buying all this.” 

“You’re the one told me I couldn’t go stealing it. Well, you gonna place such unreasonable restrictions on me, you gotta supply me with the dosh I need.”

“I can’t do this. I was just playing school girl for like ten hours. Seriously, I need--” 

“Waste of your time,” Spike cut in. 

“What?” 

“Waste of your time.” Spike was actually annoyed at the idea. What was that librarian thinking? Put her in a plaid jumper and send her off to play hopscotch? “You’re not a school girl. You’re a warrior. Like me.” 

Buffy rolled her eyes. “You’re just a dumb vampire.” 

“I’m not some dumb librarian trying to turn you into something you’re not. Where is the good professor, anyroad? He let you off leash?” 

“I’m on no one’s leash,” Buffy snapped. “He’s got Anyanka and the boys at the library, helping him research that DuLac manuscript you wanted so bad. He says there’s some secondary piece of information he needs on it, but I told him I needed a nap and came here.”

“Perfect,” Spike said. “Now you can take me shopping.” 

“You’ll just be a rooster’s tail of dust on my bike.” 

“Figured we’d take my car,” Spike said. “You know if you don’t I’ll just go robbing the places tonight. Dru’s been in the same dress for three days, and it’s got blood stains on it. And she needs to be able to move. She’s sick. Come on, slayer, I need this stuff.”

Buffy finally took the list. Spike had included things like night gowns, hair brushes, ribbons, and also venetian blinds for the windows that weren’t covered, a handful of other things. It was half a page long, and most of it was for Dru. “This isn’t going to be cheap.” 

“Are you paying for it?” 

“Huh?” 

“Do you have to earn the money?”

“Every day,” Buffy said. Spike raised an eyebrow. “Well no, I got an expense account from my last Watcher, and told this one he had to let me keep it. It all comes from the Watchers Council.” 

“They’ve been around how long? I think they have the coin to spare.” 

Buffy frowned down at the list.

“You can get stuff, too,” Spike told her. “Blame it all on me.” 

She hesitated another moment. “Fine,” she finally said. “We’ll go shopping.” 

“Good for you,” Spike said. He was tempted to tousle her hair, but he didn’t want to lose a hand. 

“Don’t push your luck.” 

Spike darted back into the basement and came back out with a blanket over his head. “Come on.” Buffy led him to the garage and opened the door for him, and he darted in without much more than feeling heat on his hands. 

“How do you manage--” she began, but answered her own question when he opened the car door. The windows had been painted over, and the front windscreen had brown paper taped over it with a narrow viewport cut out. “Well, this looks dangerous.” But she sat down without any actual protest. 

“Vampire reflexes,” Spike said. “And you can kind of see through the paint. Never gotten into a crash I didn’t want to.” Spike pulled his set of leather gloves and pair of high-intensity sun-goggles out of the glove box, along with a small metal flask. He took a swig, swallowed it down with a gulp, and then residual human instinct reminded him he was being rude, so he offered it to Buffy. 

“Yuck.” 

“It’s bourbon, not blood.” 

Buffy hesitated, then took a swig herself. She rolled it around her tongue, then took another, and Spike snatched for it back. “Easy on, that’s my good stuff.”

“Good,” Buffy said, and took a third swallow before she put the lid on. Spike’s eyes flickered down her form with appreciation as he took the flask back and put it away. She had some wrinklies, this slayer. “On our way, then.” Spike turned out of the driveway and took off for the mall. 

Spike never thought he’d be driving around with the slayer riding shotgun in his own car. It was surreal and somewhat disturbing. He parked in handicapped parking and threw the handicapped placard he’d stolen down the front of the paper screen. It didn’t actually match his licence plate, but all but the most gung-ho parking cop just ignored it once they saw the placard. Besides, he always figured having to dart into a store under a blanket counted as an actual disability. Particularly in Sunnydale, where people tended to know what that meant. 

Fortunately the sun was low enough he was able to forgo the blanket this time. The parking space was already in shadow. If he ran, he’d be fine. “You coming, sunshine?” he said to Buffy, and at her nod he slipped out and ran for the door. He was only smoking a little by the time he got inside, and rubbing his hands and face made it dissipate. 

“You always so cavalier with the sun?” Buffy asked him. 

“You always so easygoing with vampires?” he retorted. “We do what we must. Ladies clothes first, Dru needs herself a new dress.” 

Shopping with the slayer took the concept of surreal to a new level. She had a tendency to look longingly at things like sundresses and earbobs, and then shake her head and turn to the socks and men’s cargo pants. Meanwhile Spike was trying to find things that would give Drusilla a reason to wake out of her stupor. Fine satin gowns and lacey overthrows, silk stockings and bright red lipstick. 

It meant that when they converged on the cart, there would be a sudden argument. “I’m not getting her that.” 

“It’ll look good on her.” 

“She doesn’t need to look good, she’s a vampire.” 

“But it’s pretty! Here, look, check it out in the mirror.” He shoved the slayer in front of the mirror and held a red satin dress up ahead of her. 

“That looks majorly freaky, with you holding that up,” Buffy said, staring in the mirror where Spike’s demonic aura made him and his clothes vanish. The satin dress danced in the air like it was being held by a ghost. 

“But you got to admit, it looks nice,” Spike said. He brushed her braid to the side, holding it against the satin. It looked like the sunset. “Of course your coloring is so different, it all looks washed out on you.” 

“I’ll have you know, I look great in red,” Buffy snapped, snatching the dress out of his hand. “Besides, it hides the bloodstains.” 

The lingerie section. 

“I can’t believe you dragged me in here. And stop touching them all.” 

“Gotta feel which ones are softest.” 

“Put that down! Don’t rub it on your face!” 

“Would you rather model it for me?”

“No! And you officially look like a creep playing with silk underwear.” 

“I’m getting the goods for my lady. Can’t a man shop for a lady without being a creep?” 

“Maybe a man can, but a leather-clad, punked out, Billy-Idol-wannabe vampire can’t.”

“First off, I’m barely punk. Second, Billy Idol stole his look from me.” 

“Now you’re just showing off.” 

“‘S true. I’ve had this look since the ‘70s, and I was all over the music scene.” 

“Next you’re going to tell me you knew Elvis.” 

“Where do you think he learned how to use those liquid hips?” 

In the jewelry section.

“I want to get this for Dru.” 

“No.” 

“But it’s pretty!” 

“It’s useless.”

“So are you, but I’m not telling you you need to go.” 

“I’m the slayer. I stop apocalypses before breakfast. And the last thing your crazy she-seer needs is a rhinestone tiara. She’s not six.” 

“There’s still a bit of the child in Dru.”

“I got dresses, I got lingerie, I even got her fucking shoes. I draw the line at sparkly jewelry!” 

“I got to get her something for Christmas.” 

“You’re a vampire! What are you doing celebrating Christmas?” 

“Dru’s Victorian, we always celebrate Christmas. Just get some nice viscera for the tree, a few eyeballs, set something pretty underneath it.” 

“You’ve reached my limit, vampire.” 

“I may have been teasing, slayer.” 

“It’s either jewelry or curtains, Spike. Not both. Do you want protection from the sun?” 

Spike sighed, and they headed to housewares. On the way there, they passed electronics. 

“We need a TV.” 

“We do not need a TV!”

“Sure we do. When was the last time you just sat down and relaxed, slayer? You gotta do something to occupy your mind between the action. Not as if there’s any books in the house, either.” 

“It’s a waste of time. My second watcher taught me that.” 

“Your second watcher was a pillock.” 

That made the slayer pause. She stopped and looked at the price tag. “It is half off,” she said reluctantly. 

“Christmas special,” Spike said. “It’ll be a welcome relief. And it’s not just for you, it’s for the house. You got three vampires and an ex-demon to entertain. You know there’ll be bloodshed if you don’t.” He came closer to her, putting on the moves as if he meant to eat her. “Come on, slayer, you know what you want.” 

“The question isn’t about what I want,” Buffy said, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Maybe his moves were working. “It’s never about what I want, it’s about what I need.” 

“Tell you what. You get the TV,” Spike said, “and I won’t start a poetry night.” 

Buffy looked up. “Are you serious?” 

“Could do it, too. Set up in the den of the evening, set you all down, we could trade poems, make ‘em up, like. _Darkness, darkness eateth up my soul, from the plumbed depths of the deepest shoal_.”

“Stop.” 

Spike couldn’t stop grinning. He hadn’t actually written poetry since he’d died, but he still knew how to fake it. “ _And thus my heart in quiescence doth lie, as shall the glaring flare dissatisfy. And hark, the lark! Oh darkling’s deathly mirror--_ ” 

The slayer reached out and put her hand over his mouth with a slap. “Stop,” she said evenly. “OK. I’ll get the TV.” 

Her hand was warm and smelled delectable. He breathed in through his nose and almost growled in anticipation as his mouth watered. He couldn’t stop his lips from separating… his fangs tingled behind his teeth. But she took her hand off him. Spike could hear that her heart had speeded up. Her scent on his face was making his nostrils twitch. “Well done, slayer,” he said low.

“But when I’m home, I get the remote,” she said. She reached down and lightly picked the TV up, adding it to their cart, and Spike was reminded again she wasn’t human. 

They piled up the car with items bought for himself and Drusilla, and Buffy shoved the TV into the backseat. They drove back from the mall, and Spike stopped suddenly. They were next to a Christmas tree lot. 

“We should get a tree.” 

“A tree?” 

“Christmas, yeah. Look.” 

Buffy had to shift to peer through the gap in the paper, half leaning over his lap. Her hair brushed his face. “I… haven’t bothered with a Christmas tree since I was fifteen.” 

Spike looked her over. “You’re the good guy, the white hat, the halo incarnate, and you don’t celebrate Christmas?” 

“And you do? Aren’t you supposed to be evil?” 

“I told you, we decorate a little different. Dark Christmas can be fun. And I need something to snap Dru back to the present. Christmas might do it.” 

“We’re not hanging viscera from the tree.” 

“Goats’ hooves?” 

Buffy gaped at him, and then stared into nothingness for a moment. “Demon Christmas. I did not have that on my slayer bingo card.” 

She opened her door and headed out to the yard. 

It was almost sunset, and the tree merchant was locking up for the night. “You have five minutes,” he told the slayer as they tumbled out of the DeSoto. 

Spike nonchalantly threw his blanket half over his head like a shawl. If he kept his face away from the setting sun, it was enough. He wandered up and down the aisles of trees, looking for the perfect little pet for Dru, when he realized Buffy had stopped. “What is it, slayer?” 

“You notice anything weird about this?” she asked him. 

“About what?” 

“This. This whole corner of the lot, the trees have all died.”

“Well, that’s what Christmas trees do, they die,” Spike said. 

“Yeah, but not all at once. Not turn brown fast like this.” She pulled a stake from her waistband and held out her arms. “Do you feel something?” 

“Like what?” 

“Like unrestrained evil,” she said. 

“Not really,” Spike said. Then he stopped. “Hear something, though. Chanting, maybe?” 

Buffy handed Spike a couple of bills. “Pick a tree. Then come back. I think I need to check this place out.”

Spike grabbed the nearest tree to hand that wasn’t brown, and pressed the bills into the hands of the waiting merchant, who looked at the sun, took a double look at Spike’s blanket, and said, “Tie it up yourself. Twine by the front gate,” went into his mobile home, and locked the door. 

Spike tossed the tree at the DeSoto and went back to Buffy, who was walking around and pausing with her eyes shut. “I sense something. I do. Not a vampire, quite, but something…. It’s strongest right by these dead trees, but there’s nothing here.” 

“Look for a manhole or a grate or something. Sunnydale’s a warren of tunnels.” 

“It is?” 

“Yeah. Give me a tick.” Spike closed his own eyes and listened as hard as he could. The chanting was faint, but definitely there. “Stop breathing,” he said to Buffy. 

“Not a vampire,” Buffy reminded him. But she held her breath for a moment for him. Her heartbeat was still a distraction, but he tried to ignore it. 

Where was it? To the left? No, down and to the left. He led Buffy along the artificial forest of Christmas trees to what seemed to be a dropped piece of plywood. “Here’s your chanters,” he said. The plywood wouldn’t lift, but a single punch from Buffy put a big hole in it. 

Buffy slipped through and hung from the lip of the tunnel for a moment before letting herself drop. There was light down there, from a handful of torches that had been lit. The fire flickered over cavern walls. Well, that boded something all right. No one lights torches for no reason. Spike followed a second later, and it wasn’t until he’d already landed that he realized this fight had nothing to do with him. But by that time he seemed to have committed himself. He lifted a torch both for light and for a weapon. 

“Are they still chanting?” Buffy whispered. 

“Yeah,” Spike said. “Either they couldn’t hear you breaking their door in, or they can’t be bothered.”

They proceeded down the tunnel. Spike could smell them now, a sort of acrid corrosion that didn’t smell exactly demonic, but wasn’t human, either. They turned a corner and there they were, four figures in a circle, chanting and chanting, their heads bobbing. They had tortured faces, with runes carved into the place where their eyes should be, and they all turned when Buffy arrived, only then abandoning their chants. 

“Are those human?” 

“Don’t think so,” Spike said. 

“Want to check for me?” 

“How?” 

“Geas! Will they let you kill them?” 

“Why?” 

“Because they seem to be coming right at us.” 

The creatures leapt for them, and Spike let loose with a punch hard enough to break a spine. “Not human,” he said decisively, and dove into the fight with a laugh. 

The creatures weren’t hard to kill, actually. While Buffy staked one, Spike broke the back of another with his torch, and that left only the fourth to dispatch. It attacked with a wickedly curved blade, and Buffy ducked a swipe, rolled behind it, and kicked it into Spike, who landed a blow in the face and jarred the knife out its hand. That gave Buffy time to stake it, too, and the whole pile of creatures lay dead in the dark cavern.

A whooshing roar sped from out of the darkness, and a terrible cold chill washed over both of them. Then it was gone, and Buffy sighed. “I think that’s taken care of whatever that was,” she said. “The oppression’s out of the air.”

“Well, that was fun,” Spike said. “Too easy.” Spike hadn’t had a good brawl in months, aside from the slayer herself. Sunnydale was too oversaturated to make it a good place for a rough and tumble. Maybe, he realized, he should have been fighting demons this whole time. Would have been more fun than just watching Dru deteriorate and buying his blood because the place was overhunted. 

“I haven’t had enough sleep for this,” Buffy said. “Should we check the rest of this cavern?” 

Spike paused. “I don’t hear anything else alive.” 

“Fine, then. I’m heading back.” She went back to the cavern entrance and sighed at the sight of the high entrance. “Wish they had a ladder.” 

“Use my hands,” Spike said. “I’ll lift you out.” 

Buffy hesitated, finally shrugged. “What choice do I have?” She stepped into his hands, her pert breasts pushing into his face for a moment, and she smelled delectable, all het up from the fight. He hoisted her toward the hole in the roof. She caught the lip of the entrance, swung her feet for a few seconds, then disappeared through the opening. 

Leaving Spike in the cavern. “Hey. Hang on!” he said. He suddenly realized what he’d done. Buffy had already said they didn’t need him. They only needed Drusilla. She had Angel to manage Dru, so why wouldn’t she just leave him here? “Buffy?” he called out. “Slayer!” 

No response. 

Spike started muttering to himself, _filthy slayer, can’t trust a good white hat to keep her word anymore, no good deed goes unpunished_ , when Buffy’s face peered through the hole. “Here,” she said. A long tangle of tree twine slipped down from her hands down into the hole. Any one of the strands would have snapped under his weight, but all of them together were strong enough to climb up. He climbed his way out of the cavern into the growing dark, then they stared at each other. 

“That was, uh, weird,” she said.

“Pretty normal for Sunnydale,” Spike said. “Lots of weirdos and cultists and demonspawn set up shop. Hellmouth. You know.” 

“Yeah,” she said. But they both knew that wasn’t what she meant. 

They made their way back to the DeSoto and tied their newly acquired Christmas tree to the roof. 

He drove them back to the house, Spike musing on the strangeness of the evening. They were silent on the way back, the oddity that they seemed to be on the same side weighing on both of them, until Spike pulled his way into the dark garage, and turned to say something snide to the slayer, and… she was asleep. 

His first impulse was irritation. Here he’d become so tamed and helpless that a slayer would dare to fall asleep in his presence? Didn’t she know he was the one who _killed_ Slayers? Shouldn’t she have a healthy dose of fear of his presence? But then he saw how the shadows tickled along her face, and the harsh lines of cynicism had faded away, and the way her throat was exposed just so…. 

His mouth watered, and things twitched. She was beautiful, her scar like his own, a testament to her power, her hair slowly loosening from its tight braid, wispy blonde strands framing her face. He reached out to touch her pulse, right there beneath her warm skin, so small, so delicate, like a living thing all itself, sweetness just bubbling there for the taking…. 

And she nearly broke his nose. 

***

It was Giles's fault, Buffy thought. He kept waking her up and sending her out on safe daylight missions, which meant that she hadn’t had enough sleep in over three days. Killing those not-human things with Spike had drained her of the last of her reserves, and the rocking and rhythm of the car, and the scent of new clothes and pine wafting into her nose, and she’d just closed her eyes for a second, and then she felt it, the hand on her throat, the cool fingers which meant death tickling her skin, and she tensed and flailed, and her fist connected, and she was in a strange place with a strange man touching her skin, and even as her fist connected she realized she was in a vampire’s car, with a vampire who claimed to have killed slayers reaching for her throat, and she kicked out with her knee, because the reality was just as bad as any fevered slayer dream, and she kicked and flailed and Spike scrambled for the door handle as his elbow hit the car horn, and he fell out into the garage, and Buffy sat trapped in the car, panting, furious at herself for showing any vulnerability, and Spike dragged himself to his feet and glared at her in the dim light. 

“What did you have to go and do that for?” he demanded. 

“Don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch me!” Buffy screamed at him. 

“Was just trying to wake you up!” he shouted back. 

“Like I believe that!” 

“Not like I was gonna kill you, was it?” 

Buffy scrambled to her knees, glaring up at him from inside the car. “There are ways and ways of hurting people without killing them, and don’t tell me you don’t know that!” 

Spike paused and looked down at her. “Of the two of us,” he said acidly, “I’m the one who’s bleeding.” 

He was. A trickle of blood dribbled from his nose. When she didn’t jump up to attack him again, he rubbed it off with a knuckle, and then tasted it as she watched. 

“Ugh,” she said. She forced her way out of her side of the car and slammed the door.

For a long moment they just stood there in the dark, on either side of the car. 

“So you realized the loophole, did you?” Spike said. “And found a few of your own.” 

“Did you really think I was too stupid to notice?”

He didn’t answer at first. They’d gotten closer over their shopping trip and the subsequent slayage, but now a wall had grown between them again, and Buffy was glad. She was getting dangerously complacent about the idea of working with these vampires. She’d just basically been buying them gifts! She had to stop this, she had to fight it, she had to fight them. 

“So long as we need each other,” Spike said, “you’re safe from me.” 

“And how can I believe a word you say? You’re evil.”

“And I haven’t lied to you.” 

“Nothing’s to say you couldn’t.” 

“Nothing’s to say you couldn’t lie to me,” Spike said. “Chain me up, torture me with holy water. Hell, you could have your librarian or your ex-demon chit stake me.” 

“Do we need to sign another geas, then?” Buffy said. “Bring up every contingency or loophole? There would always be another one. We could always find another way to hurt each other.” 

There was a long silence. 

“Or,” he said quietly, “we could just… see.” 

Buffy didn’t know how to answer that. It seemed so reasonable, and yet he was so evil. _Humans can be evil_ , Buffy reminded herself. And she wanted to find Willow. 

There it was. It was out now. They both knew there was basically nothing stopping them from doing almost anything they wanted to the other. They had both always known that. Nothing had really changed. 

Yet everything had changed. 

“I gotta… check on Dru,” Spike said suddenly. 

“Yeah, I’ll… bring stuff in,” Buffy said. Spike took in a bag of clothes while Buffy lifted out the television. _And television is an imprudent waste of time and mind,_ said her late-watcher’s voice in her head. 

Buffy quashed it as Spike turned with a flip of his coat onto the porch. If there was one thing this agreement had shown her, it was that she was sick and tired of being prudent. 


	8. Ravens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Banner by nmcil

“Don’t you want any?” Xander asked Willow. Willow looked over from her books. Xander had the victim half naked and was sucking on hundreds of tiny bites. The victim was covered in rivulets of blood, and was still whimpering a little as it hung from the ceiling. They still hadn’t left Spike and Drusilla’s lair, though it was tempting to return to the Bronze. But for some reason Willow found it awkward there. She was taking the Master’s place, yes. But she didn’t have his bravado, and her powers of thrall were weaker than his. She didn’t quite trust Buffy not to just stride in and burn the place to the ground like she had the factory. And at least this mansion was largely fireproof. 

Xander looked over the shoulder of the victim hopefully, and waved its hand at her. “Earth to Willow. There’s still plenty.” 

“I need to study,” Willow said reluctantly, and went back to the magic text she was reading. She hadn’t found anything that would enable her to track the slayer yet. She would have had to have something personal belonging to her, a ring, a fingernail, something, and Willow had nothing, and she hadn’t found the woman. It was bothering her. 

“You’ve been studying for days,” Xander told her. “You haven’t found anything yet. Why don’t we just drive around looking for her? She seems to find the others fast enough.” 

“Because I don’t want to just jump in,” Willow said. “The Master thought she would be easy to dispatch, and see where that got him. I want to know where she is, and make a plan of attack. And she _is_ finding the others fast enough. That’s the problem.” 

Willow had _tried_ to form a plan of attack. She’d sent minions to the library many times, but Giles seemed to have abandoned it as a place of night study now that she and Xander had attacked Cordelia there. She’d even left a corpse to turn there, but someone -- the white hats or the slayer herself-- took care of it. Willow had sent out her minions to patrol the area, but they either came back without intel, or didn’t come back at all. And people were starting to question her. It was just like the Mayor had suggested. Maybe she was too young to rule. 

She was getting scared. If this kept on, she’d have to call in the big guns, contact Rack or even the Mayor, get someone to help her who could get the job done. And what that would do to her nascent power base, she had no idea. She wished, not for the first time, that the world hadn’t jumped and the Master hadn’t died. Of course, she half remembered dusting in that other moment before the jump, but maybe she was just imagining that. 

The victim screamed low, and Willow slammed her hand down on the table. “Xander! I mean it! I need to concentrate!” 

“No. You,” Xander said, “need to stop studying and clear your mind for a bit. Come on.” He took her by the shoulders and kissed her, his mouth redolent with fresh blood, and Willow sighed against him. “Do you remember that terrible test in 7th grade, when you couldn’t focus on Western Expansion? And all I needed to do was get you to sit down and watch a little Doogie Howser, and your brain was just clear as a bell? That’s what you need now.” 

“Doogie Howser?” 

“No, to think about something else for a while. Come on.” He stood her up and led her over to the victim. “Just take a bite. Bit of a snack.” 

Willow succumbed to temptation. It didn’t take much, really. Xander could always pull her from her studies. 

“That’s it,” Xander said as Willow fed. “It’s not your fault. It’s nearly Christmas. We’re all feeling a little weak and exhausted from the holidays.” 

“Holiday,” Willow murmured against the victim’s skin. “Holiday!” She stood up abruptly, blood trickling from her mouth. “That’s it, I need to call on another power! A power disturbed by the holiday season. Something that’s just as irritated by Christmas as we are.” 

“Like what?” 

“Something non-Christian. An older god, another power.” 

“Something Jewish?” 

“No, that’s too close. I need to contact something completely other.” 

“I thought you didn’t want to contact the power of the old gods. That they disliked vampires.” 

“Some of them do, but I don’t need the gods themselves. Just a messenger, to find out where the slayer is hiding herself.” Willow ran back to her pile of books and dragged out something on Nordic spellwork. “I need to invoke the ravens.” 

***

“ _It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank._ ” The gravelly voice crooned from Oz’s laptop in the corner. 

“What is this music?” Buffy asked. 

“I don’t know,” Anyanka told her. “Spike put together a playlist. Do we have any more rabbit’s feet?” 

“Uh, yeah. Here.” 

Anyanka hung up another symbol of fluffy domination. “I love rabbit's feet. It is important to show our mastery over the bunnies’ hoppy destruction.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” Buffy said. “So long as they don’t stink up the house.” 

Anyanka was starting to really like Buffy. The young woman was spunky, clever, and didn’t take anyone’s bullshit. She had realized after she got stuff for the vampires -- or at least for Spike and Drusilla, who really did seem to be living like royalty in that basement -- that she ought to get stuff for Anyanka, too, so the first day of winter break she had taken the ex-demon out shopping for clothes and personal items. While they were at it they picked up some holiday ornaments. 

Anyanka and Spike had discussed proper decorations. While they were all for hanging entrails on the tree, Buffy had vetoed anything that would rot, drip, smell, or crawl. That had severely curbed the demons’ decor list, but they’d finally settled on rabbit’s feet, strings of cranberries, and dozens of tiny letter openers which looked like knives, perfect for the celebration of Gurnenthar’s Ascendance. Spike had shown up with some red lights -- he refused to say where he’d got them, and Buffy had shoved him against the wall telling him to stop stealing, but she’d agreed they could go on the tree. The tree glowed red and shone with metal with little fluffy rabbits feet, and Anyanka rather liked it. Spike said Drusilla liked it, and that was the important part to him. 

It had been irritating to Anyanka to realize that Giles had insisted she and Buffy go to school for only two days before the coming winter break, but Giles had explained he was trying to establish a baseline for Buffy, assuming she had to remain in Sunnydale for some time. And that did seem to be the case. While Spike stayed home and looked after Drusilla, Buffy, the Library Squad and Angel had begun patrolling every night together, searching for any sign of Willow or Xander. And while they had found many vampires, none were willing to give up Willow’s location. 

Willow hadn’t given up, though. At least three times Giles had found the school library disturbed when he went in in the morning to research, with books tossed about in the night, and once an ominous corpse left on the central table. Sure enough, it turned into a vampire, and Buffy had to stake it. But Anyanka hadn’t had to deal with much of this, resolved instead to turn the house on Revello Drive into something she could live in for a while, at least until she graduated high school and was able to get a proper job. To that end she’d been hanging curtains, cleaning bathrooms, collecting furniture and knickknacks, and generally making the place nicer. 

Spike came up from the basement with a bunch of candles. “Here,” he said. “We should light these at sunset.” 

Buffy rounded on him. “You stole again. Again! I told you to stop that!”

“You complain when I bug you for shite. If we’re going to have a party, we have to decorate.” 

“I don’t see why we’re having a party at all,” Buffy said, turning away from everyone to throw herself down on the couch. 

“It was Giles’s idea,” Anyanka said. “Something about team solidarity?” 

“The slayer’s a Scrooge,” said Drusilla dreamily from her corner. She was curled up with her hands around her knees, gazing up at the glowing Christmas tree. 

“The slayer has a vampire sorceress to catch,” Buffy said, “and as I understand correctly, she’ll be weak today and tomorrow.” She turned to look at Dru. “And you have _no_ idea where they are? None?” 

“Yeah, well, Dru’s weak _now_ ,” Spike said quickly. “And will be until librarian man sorts out her cure. And no one’ll be out until after sunset, anyroad.” 

“And what is this music?” Buffy demanded again. 

“This is the single greatest Christmas tune of all time,” Spike told her. 

The music had picked up and the singers seemed to be having an argument. “ _You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, happy Christmas my ass, I pray god its our last.”_

“Sounds about right for Christmas in my experience,” Anyanka said. “I used to get a lot of vengeance jobs on and around Christmas. Women cheated on, stolen from, used, abused, belittled, abandoned…” 

“We got it,” Buffy said. 

“Spat on, shopped around, taken advantage of, taken for granted, and sometimes just plain old given crappy gifts.” 

“Pretty birdies sing,” Drusilla said quietly. “Too loudly they sing, they wake up the king.” 

“Does she ever make sense?” Buffy asked of Spike, not unkindly. 

“Not often in public, but eventually you get that she makes sense to herself. A lot of what she says only makes sense in retrospect, and by that time you’ve usually forgotten most of it.” 

“It’s a little creepy.” 

“Isn’t it?” Spike said with a happy grin. 

A scuff on the stairs told Anyanka that Angel was up. Early for him, he usually slept all through the day. Spike liked to be up in the afternoons to watch Passions, and Drusilla had no set sleep time, wandering the house at all hours and stacking Giles’s books in intricate helixes or rearranging cups into sunbursts on the table or something, but of all the vampires Angel was the most strictly nocturnal. So it was strange that he was up now. He came padding silently down the stairs, regarding the preparations for celebration. “ _You took my dreams from me when I first found you,”_ the music continued. 

“Do you all have to be so loud?” Angel asked. 

Buffy regarded him, went over to the laptop, and turned the volume up a bit just as the fighting couple seemed to have reconciled. Spike laughed and passed Anyanka a sparkling red garland to hang by the window. 

Angel scowled and stalked into the kitchen for a mug of blood. Angel had been doing a lot of scowling and avoiding people. He’d come down once complaining of nightmares, but that was the day they got the television, and the rest of the household was far too immersed in getting it set up and arguing what they were going to watch. He hadn’t tried to claim attention since then, and Anyanka was glad, because even though she didn’t know much about his history, the way he looked at Buffy always made Anyanaka’s hackles rise. If that man didn’t have twenty different vengenances that needed to be cursed upon him, then she was a monkey’s great uncle. 

“Ignore Angel,” Spike said to Buffy. “He’s not up on Christmas. He’s an Enlightenment hedonist turned brooding moralizer who believes he’s judge and jury. And sometimes executioner.” 

“He told Giles he hasn’t eaten human blood since he got his soul,” Buffy said. 

“And I watched him feed on Angel-identified criminals for near a year after,” Spike said, “and a smattering of victims for _reasons_ after that. Mostly he likes to mope in his room and brood about it a lot rather than do anything.” 

“And you’d do something?” 

“Don’t need to,” Spike said. “Got no soul weighing me down, do I?” 

“What does that do, exactly? Since it doesn’t make him good.” 

“Makes him feel bad,” Spike said. “That’s it. That’s the whole gift of the soul, from what I can see.”

“The human soul makes him human, so his emotions are human, and his remorse is human,” Anyanka said. “As opposed to only having demon instincts and demon emotions. It’s like a symbiote to the demon running the vampire body. Only they meld and mix and stuff. But his soul is pretty black. I doubt it was pristine even before he became a vampire, and it’s lots worse now. Can someone get the other end of this? I can’t… reach….” 

Buffy took the other end of the red garland and hung it from the curtain rod. She looked out the window while she did it. “Oh, it’s Larry.” A minute later he knocked on the door, and Buffy went to unlock it and let him in.

A cacophony of caws greeted her as she opened the door. A murder of crows seemed to have perched in the trees above Revello Drive. Buffy looked up on them. They seemed a little bigger than crows, actually. One looked down on her with a sharp black eye, and she closed the door behind Larry without inviting him in. Buffy never invited anyone by voice if she could help it, in case they’d been turned into a vampire since the last time she’d seen them. But Larry came in without hesitation, so he was probably still human. 

“Getting crazy out there,” Larry said. “I picked up a few books at the library, like Giles asked, and these two crows out there followed me all the way here. Joined up with the others.” 

“They did?” Buffy looked out the window again. The crows or ravens or whatever they were seemed content to just hang out in the yard, but they were eerie. Big and black and they swamped the sunlight through the trees, casting the house in shadow. 

“That’s all of us except Giles, isn’t it?” Buffy asked. She wished she had some way of checking in on him, but he'd said he had to go pick up something for the party, and would be a little later. 

“Yeah. I brought chips,” Larry said, hoisting the party sized bag a little higher on his hip.

“Food goes in the kitchen. Anyanka made most of it.” 

“I shopped for most of it,” Anyanka said. “Most of the ingredients I’m used to cooking with haven’t been for sale since the 14th century.” 

Buffy kept staring out the window. “How long have these birds been here?” She’d noticed one earlier this morning when she and Anyanka had gone for party supplies. But now there were dozens, maybe over a hundred. It was a lot of crows for a little residential lawn. 

Still, crows did congregate, didn’t they? Perfectly natural phenomenon. Buffy put the worry in the back of her mind and went to help Larry in the kitchen. She was arranging mini cupcakes and Funyuns on the kitchen counter, and thus she missed when Giles arrived. She heard the door open, heard him bustling in, greeting people. She heard the music turn off, and voices speaking low. She came out with her face pensive, planning on asking Giles what he thought of the crows, and stopped short. 

“Mom?” she asked. “Mom, what on earth are you doing here?” 

Joyce was dressed in staid blue, and her face was immaculately made up. Buffy was stunned. It had been years since she’d seen her mother, and her mind whirled. Joyce turned and gasped at Buffy, her face steeled, as if she’d expected this. “Buffy.” She smiled, but it was nervous. “I’m so glad to see you again.” 

Buffy stared at her mother, then her eyes flickered to Giles, who wouldn’t look at her, then she looked at Joyce again, then at Spike and Angel in their dramatic leather jackets, at the mad vampiress on the floor, at the ex-demon arranging knives on the glowing red Christmas tree, at the boys with stakes in their back pockets, then back at Joyce, and her eyes filled with tears, and her hands clenched, and then her fist met with the side table and it buckled under her blow, and that was broken, and now she’d have to repair or replace it, and Joyce was still standing there as if she were facing a wild animal she wanted to tame, and Buffy glared at Giles and yelled, “Get her out of here!” and she ran up the stairs and into her bedroom and threw herself onto her mattress and bit her knuckle. 

Her mother was in Sunnydale. Her mother was going to see it all. 

***

“I’m sorry, Ms. Summers. I didn’t think she’d react that badly,” Giles told her. 

“It was a shock,” Joyce said. “Do you know if she’s angry, or embarrassed?” 

“I’m afraid I don’t know her very well,” Giles admitted. “She could be either.” 

“That wasn’t anger,” said the girl who had been decorating. “I’m not sure what it was, but that wasn’t anger. I know anger, and she had nothing vengeancey about her at all.” 

“Thank you,” Joyce said. “You’re a friend of Buffy’s?”

“We’re all sort of roommates,” said the tall man in the short leather coat. 

“Didn’t tell the bird you were coming, did you?” said the shorter man in the long leather coat. 

“It has been a while,” Joyce said. “We thought it better to not give her a chance to back out. If you’ll excuse me.” She headed up the stairs. 

“Are you sure that’s the best plan?” Giles asked her. 

“I’m not letting her go again,” Joyce said. “I’ll make this work.” She left Giles and the rest of the household behind and went up to the door she’d thought she heard slam. She knocked quietly. “Buffy? Are you in there?” 

Buffy didn’t answer. 

“I’m sorry to spring this on you,” Joyce said, hoping she was at the right door. Two of the doors were closed, so she had a fifty-fifty chance of being right. She spoke loudly enough that it could reach the other door if she was wrong. “When Mr. Giles called, he said you’d been through a lot in the last couple years. I believe it. We don’t need to talk about any of that, though. I just want to get to know you again.” 

She heard a sound behind the door -- good, she’d gotten the right room -- but it wasn’t an answer. 

“Buffy, honey, I’ve missed you. That’s all that matters to me. That I have a daughter whom I love, and I’ve found her again. I didn’t mean to push you away, if I pushed you away. I should have followed your father to New York. I never meant for any of this to happen.” There was no response. Joyce leaned closer to the door. “Buffy? Can’t we just talk? Don’t you want to know what’s happened in our lives? Your father’s moved again. Your aunt just won the lottery -- only a few thousand, but it’s enough for a new car. Buffy?” She knocked on the door. “Can’t I come in?” 

A rumble on the other side of the door, and then Buffy flung the door open. She didn’t look at Joyce. “Giles!” she yelled down the stairs. “You get up here!” 

A trepidatious-looking Giles slowly made his way up the stairs. “What’s wrong, Buffy?” 

“You know what’s wrong! You dragged her into this, up to Sunnydale! You know how dangerous it is, and you brought her here anyway!” 

“It’s daylight, in a private home,” Giles said. 

“With my roommates!” Buffy snapped. “With Spike and Drusilla and don’t forget Anyanka, and how the hell am I supposed to keep everything on the downlow when we’ve got… that! And that!” She gestured dramatically down the stairs. 

“I don’t care how punk or eccentric your friends are, Buffy,” Joyce said evenly. “I just want to reconnect. I’ve thought you were dead for the last year and a half, don’t you think I deserve a little time with my own daughter?” 

“I’m not your daughter,” Buffy said, turning to her, finally. “I was, but I’m not, I can’t be. You don’t understand. Oh, god, Giles, how can I make her understand? You, you’re all watchers, you signed up for this, you trained for this, she didn’t!”

“You need something in your life that isn’t just all this,” Giles said, gesturing with his arm at everything. “Your mother wanted to reconnect. I think that you should hear her out.” 

“But she’s here, she’s _here!_ Mom, we have to get you out of here.”

“Away from you, or…?”

“Out of Sunnydale. This place is dangerous.” 

“Then what are you doing here?” Joyce asked. “I know Sunnydale is dangerous, the tales of gang wars and drug lords and mafia killings that come down every week.” 

“Mafia killings,” Buffy said with a helpless laugh. 

“But if you’re going to risk your life to be here, if I can’t stop you from making your own choices, the least I can do is support you in those choices,” Joyce said. “I need you to know that you can always come to me, no matter what gang initiation or -- or crime mess you’re into. I mean, I can’t promise that I won’t tell you you should go to the police, but--”

“Mm! See?” Buffy pointed at Joyce while looking at Giles.

“But I won’t call you in or anything. I’m your mother, and I love you.” 

Buffy’s eyes closed in something like despair. “Why, why did you bring her? Why?” 

“Buffy, your mother loves you,” Giles said. “Someone in this world loves you, unconditionally. I think you should take a moment and hold on to that.” He took Buffy’s hand for a moment, and put it in Joyce’s, and then he let them both go and went back down the stairs. 

Buffy’s hand squeezed Joyce’s for a moment, but then she let go, and Joyce sniffed. “Buffy. Please. Please just let me into your life, just for a little while. Then I’ll go, and you’ll never have to see me again if you don’t want. Can’t you understand that I love you? No matter what’s happened, no matter what you’ve done, what you’re doing, I love you.” She reached out for Buffy’s shoulder. “Please don’t hate me.” 

“I don’t hate you,” Buffy said. “Oh!” She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall. “I can’t make you understand.” 

“Well, understand this. Your father was wrong to kick you out of his house. I was furious with him for it. He said you’d be back in a couple of weeks with your tail between your legs, but I knew you were too strong for that. I went to New York myself, I hired a private investigator to find you. No luck, and I couldn’t afford to pay him for long. But I always kept looking, hoping. I didn’t move out of our old house in LA, even though it’s too big for me, thinking you might one day show up out of the blue. I call your father every month -- your father! -- checking to see if he’d heard anything of you.” 

“Did you tell him where I am?” Buffy asked. 

“I thought I’d ask you if you wanted me to do that.” 

“Well, I don’t,” she said. “I don’t want him knowing where I am, I don’t want _you_ knowing where I am. It’s too dangerous.” 

“If it’s too dangerous for us, it’s too dangerous for you,” Joyce said. “Can’t you ask them to let you out? Can’t we buy you out or something?” 

“I’m not with the mafia, Mom. It’s more complicated than that.” 

“It’s always complicated,” Joyce said. “But no matter how complicated it is, I love you. You have to know that.” 

Buffy sighed again, and sank down to the floor. Joyce went with her, her hand still on her shoulder. “Oh, Mom,” she said. 

Joyce reached out and turned Buffy’s head toward her. “That’s a pretty bad scar,” she said idly. “You’re not on your father’s insurance anymore. Who tended it?” 

“I sewed it up myself,” Buffy said. 

“Oh.” Joyce couldn’t hold back a cringe. She brushed tendrils of hair from her daughter’s face. Buffy didn’t look anything like the troubled young girl she’d sent off to New York with Hank. Yes, that girl had gotten into fights at school, yes, she’d burned down the school gym, but that was still a girl. This young woman looked as aged as any battle-hardened soldier, and Joyce wanted to catch her up and protect her, hide her in a box until the danger was past. “Oh, honey. Don’t send me away. I just want you back in my life. I want to be part of _your_ life.” 

“I don’t have a life,” Buffy said dully. “We’ve got to get you out of here. Did you take the bus?” 

“Um, no, I brought my car. I came here with Mr. Giles.” 

“Well, you can go back with Mr. Giles. And… and Larry, maybe. Between the two of them we can get you out of town, I think. I don’t want you driving alone.” 

“Buffy, don’t--”

“Guys?” Buffy stood up and went down the stairs, leaving Joyce alone in the hallway. She sighed and picked herself up to follow. “Guys, we need to get my mom back to LA. Giles, Larry, can you drive with her? Oz can follow and pick you up in the van. We just really need to get her out of Sunnydale.” 

“Yeah, that’s okay,” Oz said. 

“Are you sure that’s what you want, Buffy?” Giles asked. 

“Yes. Now. Before sunset.” She stopped and turned Joyce to look at her. “It’s okay, Mom. I don’t hate you, really. This isn’t your fault. But you need to go.” Buffy opened the door and walked her mother outside. 

Only to be attacked by at least twenty ravens. 

Buffy dragged Joyce back into the house by her scruff, throwing her mother behind her and forcing the door closed. Several ravens were trapped in the house with them. A few flew around, cawing, while several flapped and pecked around Buffy. “Shit!” Buffy yelled. She backed across the hall and into the living room, where she ran into the Christmas tree. She snatched some of the letter openers from the tree and started driving them into bird heads and bird wings, throwing them expertly when the birds didn’t get close enough. 

The dark haired woman in red danced in the middle of the chaos. “Pretty birdies sing! They sing!” she cried out. 

“Get down, Dru!” said the man in the long coat, and dragged her to the floor. He stood up and punched a raven out of the air. It landed dead on Joyce’s lap. The other man in the short leather coat was wrestling with several ravens of his own. Buffy darted forward and grabbed one by the feet, whacking it against the wall, which gave the man a moment to grab for his own bird and twist its neck. Meanwhile the man in the long coat was standing guard over the dark haired girl, swinging wildly at any raven that came within reach. 

“Knives!” Buffy said to him, and he raided the Christmas tree. A few more ravens fell, but his aim wasn’t as good as Buffy’s when it came to knifing them out of the air. One hit the arm of the large boy called Larry, and the other girl screamed when a raven came close to her. Buffy caught it before it attacked the girl’s face. 

After a few minutes, the chaos had passed. Joyce looked down. Her arms were scratched and her hair was mussed and she had a dead raven on her lap. She shoved it off her and stood up. “What… on Earth…!” 

“Giles! We have a new problem,” Buffy said. 

“Yes, I’d sort of gathered that,” said Mr. Giles. He was holding a still-living struggling raven in both hands. A scratch was on his forehead. “If you would fetch me a towel or a pillowcase or something?”

“What do you need that for? I’ll just kill it,” Buffy said. 

“I’d like to keep a sample alive for the moment,” Giles said. “In lieu of a birdcage, I’d like something to stop it from pecking at me!”

One of the leather-clad men handed Giles a dishtowel, and helped him wrap the bird tightly enough so that only the tip of its beak shone glossy black out of the cloth. 

“Did we get all the others?” asked the boy called Oz. 

“I think we did,” Buffy said. She looked out the window. “Now we’ve got only about two hundred left to go.” 

“What is going on?” Joyce asked. “Why did those birds attack us? And since when have you known how to handle knives like that?” 

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Giles, _this_ is why we don’t bring my family on missions!” She started picking up dead birds. “Anyanka, get up! They’re all dead, help me get rid of the damned things.” 

“Don’t blame me for being scared,” Anyanka said from her position inside the fireplace. “I’m not a vampire or a slayer or a demon fighter or anything. I’m not used to fighting evil spells, just casting them.” 

Joyce looked around. She raised her hand like she was in school. “I’m confused,” she confessed. 

Buffy looked to Giles. “Hm?” she said, with an air of demand. 

Giles took a deep breath and handed the bird to his companion. “Well, um. When… when certain atmospheric conditions are met, a rare congress of ravens can accumulate, which can be extremely territorial. When we arrived they weren’t frightened because we, ah, came from outside their territory, but now that we’re inside it, uh--”

“Mom, a demon has cast some sort of spell that made me the target of ravens, for some godawful reason. They didn’t attack you or the others because you weren’t me. They’re after me. I’m the slayer. I hunt monsters, and monsters hunt me. There. Are you less confused?” She looked out the window and winced as a terrible pecking started, as a couple of ravens flew at the glass. She lowered the curtain and turned back. 

Buffy’s eyes had a strange glint in them, and her back was a little straighter. “I need a stake,” she said. “Where are my stakes?” 

“Wait. I don’t understand. The slayer?” Joyce asked. “Slayer of what?” 

“Vampires. Demons, vampires, nasties. I’m the vampire slayer, Mom. It’s what I do. It's why I was always late home, it’s why I burned down the school gym, it’s why Dad got pissed off I was always out and kicked me out of the house, and that’s why you couldn’t find me when I never came back. I was living with my watcher, and we were hunting vampires.” 

“Vampires.” Joyce rolled her eyes. “Right. And you expect me to believe these wild stories--”

“Spike, show her your bumpies,” Buffy said. 

The long-coated young man, Spike, gave a positively evil grin, and cackled. As he cackled his teeth grew long in his mouth, his forehead puckered, and his eyes grew yellow and demonic. Joyce jumped, and a second later the dark haired woman Dru was standing next to Spike, and she was fangy and yellow eyed, too, and Joyce stepped away from them and ran into the other leather coated man, and the girl Anyanka said, “He’s a vampire, too,” and so Joyce went toward her instead. 

“And I suppose you’re a demon?” she asked. 

“No. I just used to be,” said Anyanka, and Joyce backed away again and found the stairs and sank down on them taking in deep gulps of air. 

“They’re vampires,” she said. “They really are vampires.” She looked up at Buffy. “You’re living with _vampires!_ ” 

“They’re just suckers,” Buffy said. 

“I am not!” Spike announced with a growl. 

“Yes, you are!” Buffy told him with an air of fight-me about it. 

“Wh-what’s a sucker?” 

“A vampire that doesn’t kill people,” Buffy said. “We have a temporary truce. I need them to help me find _another_ vampire who wants me dead. And that vampire -- probably -- is the one who cast this crow spell.” 

“They’re ravens,” Giles said. 

“Raven spell, whatever,” Buffy said. “And _that_ is why I can’t have you or Dad around, Mom. Everything’s trying to kill me. And they won’t hesitate to kill you, too.” 

“So what are we going to do?” asked Larry. 

“We,” Giles said, “are going to research.” 

***

Two hours later, with the sun already sliding down the sky into twilight, Giles was no closer to finding out exactly what was going on with the ravens. He was too far away from his books, and while the ravens didn’t seem to come after him too badly when he left the house, they tried very hard to get in to Buffy, so he couldn’t actually leave. “And the one thing we don’t want is for them to still be here at sunset,” Buffy said. “Because if anything holds a big neon sign over my new home base, it’s a thousand ravens perched over it.” 

“I doubt there’s any more than three hundred,” Giles said, poking at Oz’s laptop. Unable to consult his books, he’d resorted to unorthodox measures, including website reference and a phone call he wasn’t sure he wanted Buffy to know about. The raven he had captured had a thinly glowing mark inscribed on its foot. He had identified it as the rune _hagalaz_ , or chaos and destruction, but what that meant besides itself was beyond him. 

Buffy and the others had performed a few experiments. The creatures attacked Buffy, and if anyone else tried to leave they tried to get in to attack Buffy. They would also attack Buffy’s clothes if they were held out of the door on sticks. It was Spike who had pointed out that it was anything that smelled like Buffy got their feathers in a ruffle. “Ravens have a good sense of smell,” he said. “They know what they’re after. They probably caught a whiff of you this morning, and have been gathering forces ever since.” He glanced out the window. “Another crew just flew in.” 

“Get away from the window,” Angel said. “The sun’s coming in.” 

“Sun’s almost down,” Spike said. “And what do you care?” 

Giles sighed. Buffy had been keeping Joyce away from the windows. They were effectively trapped until they figured out how to manage these beasts, or they went away on their own. And the chances were when the ravens dissipated, the vampires would assemble. 

The phone rang, and Giles didn’t get up fast enough to get it. “Hello?” Buffy answered. She looked up sharply at Giles. “Oh,” she said. “I get it. Guess you two are almost like friends now.” She paused. “No, no, he didn’t tell me. Giles hasn’t been telling me a lot lately. He’s getting more like a watcher every day.” She scoffed. “Fine, whatever. Here’s Giles.” She tossed the phone at him. 

“You didn’t tell her you’d called to consult me?” Wyndam-Pryce asked over the phone. 

“She’s not very fond of you,” Giles said. “I meant to tell her, I just didn’t know who else to call. Have you found any references to the rune _hagalaz_ on a raven?”

“Just a reference to a raven spell itself. Here it is. In ancient Nordic tradition the ravens Hugin and Munin were said to be the eyes and ears of Odin, the god of war.” 

“Yes, I know my Norse mythos,” Giles said. “What about the spell?”

“Well, there is a reference to an ancient spell by which you could call on Hugin and Munin to watch for you, so long as your goal was that of destruction. Could that be the rune marking you found?” 

“Yes, it could be. But this is far more than just the two ravens.” 

“The god’s messengers could call upon the whole species at need. What you need to do is to somehow separate the call, dissipate the connection that the messengers have on the other ravens.” 

“How would you do that?” Giles asked. 

“Well, ideally you would locate the spellcaster and eradicate them.” 

“The whole reason this is happening is because Buffy and the sorceress don’t know where the other is!” Giles asked. 

“Well, then you can always wait,” Wyndam-Pryce said. “Once this sorceress has identified the slayer's location, there’s a good chance she will come to her.” 

“Bringing her entire cadre of minions along for good measure! Is this what the watchers taught you? To throw the slayer in at the deep end with rocks tied to her feet, and watch her drown? Because that’s all the good you’re doing her!” 

“She can’t swim if she can’t find the water.” 

“She can’t swim at all if you don’t bother to teach her how! And I thought _that_ was the goal of the watcher, not to watch the girl be killed!”

“Excuse me, sir!” 

“Go to hell, sir!” Giles told Wyndam-Pryce. “I’ll manage better on my own.” He slammed down the phone. 

Only to find Buffy looking at him with a measure of pride. “Wes getting you down?” she asked. 

“I knew there was a reason I left the Watcher’s Council. Even if I can’t remember it.” 

“Sorry about that,” Anyanka said from the side room. “Wishes can have weird side effects.” 

“So what’s the skivvy on the ravens?” Buffy asked. 

“We need to dissipate the connection the ravens have to each other,” Giles said. “Separate them, somehow. I’m not sure how to do that.” 

“Miles to go, miles to go, miles to go,” Drusilla muttered in the other room. 

“What’s she on about?” Giles asked. 

“She’s been muttering that for the last twenty minutes,” Buffy said. “Spike, maybe you want to take her back down to the basement?” 

“She’s not hurting anyone,” Spike said. 

“Don’t you see?” Dru said to Spike. “You have miles to go before you sleep.” 

“Isn’t that a Robert Frost poem?” Angel asked. “You still reading her poetry?” 

“Shut up,” Spike said darkly. “What is it, pet? You have an idea?” 

“The birdies sing to each other, and sing to me,” she said. “They hope and hop and cry, oh. You’ll run away from me. Fly far, far away with the birdies, like the birdies, and the slayer will cry, and you’ll run and fly and hop, and poof. They’ll all fly away.” She looked up at Spike. “That’s all you need to make them fly. Fly for them, my pretty Spike. You, and the slayer. You need to fly away.” 

“Do you understand what she’s talking about?” Buffy asked. 

“She had a vision,” Angel said seriously. “It can be a little hard to interpret.” 

“Just give me a minute,” Spike said. “You want me to fly, pet?” 

“Wear the slayer’s skin, and they’ll hop to you,” Drusilla said. “And the slayer calls out from the darkness, and they’ll fly to her, too. Too many directions, too many worlds, too many eyes, too much to see, and poof. They’ll all just fly away.” 

“I get it,” Spike said. “Slayer? You and me need to go on a little journey.” 

***

The sun was setting when the slayer in her jean jacket, riding helmet and gloves came running out the door. Had to be the slayer. She smelled like the slayer, and her clothes were the slayer’s, and the slayer was here, and now she was out. Arms waved at the ravens to make sure their attention was on her, and then she hopped onto her Kawasaki and sped off down the road. Most of the ravens swooped up to follow. 

And before they all could, another figure popped out of the other door. “Hey, ravens!” Buffy called from the back yard. “Come and catch me!” 

The ravens were confused. Which was the slayer? They both smelled like the slayer. They both had come out of the same house. This new slayer ran for a maroon sedan and slammed herself inside. She took off down the road in the opposite direction from the motorcycle, leaving the window open so her scent wafted behind her. 

Half the ravens had already taken off after the bike, but the other half followed the sedan, cawing and calling to the others to follow, but they were already gone, after the slayer on the motorcycle.

Giles looked out into the yard and saw that all the birds had taken off from around the house, two groups, in different directions. 

“Now what?” Joyce asked him. 

“Now we keep an eye on this fellow,” Giles said. He looked at the raven, which had been placed in a live animal trap Spike had remembered from the basement. It was a little short for a birdcage, but did the job. 

Drusilla was singing to the raven, “ _As I was walking all alane,_ _I heard twa corbies making a mane._ ” 

“What do you think will happen when the connection dissipates?”

“I’m hoping there will be some kind of sign. From what I believe, the rune will fade from the bird’s foot, and we’ll know the spell is broken.” 

“And who are you, who knows about spells and vampires? What is Buffy? What is a slayer? What’s a watcher? And how did you get involved with these vampires?” 

“That,” Giles said, “is a number of very long stories.”

“Well, since I’m not going anywhere until my daughter returns,” Joyce said, “it appears we have the time.” 


	9. Calling

It was nice in her mom’s car. Buffy hadn’t smelled her perfume in years, and she drove through the night with memories tracing through her mind. Her mom wasn’t the greatest parent in the world, but she’d tried. Her mother loved her….

Her mom was in Sunnydale. By night. Buffy hit the accelerator and moved on through the streets. Unfortunately she’d gotten lost on the way back, and it was later than she wanted it to be. They’d had no idea how far it would take before the spell broke and the ravens stopped chasing them. It had been several miles past Sunnydale before they dissipated. At first she’d feared they’d only vanished in the darkness, but she’d finally dared to get out and try to wave them down, and none attacked. They were finally gone. 

She hoped Spike was okay. He had been the only choice to wear her clothes -- all the others were either too big, or too fragile to risk both the ravens and the Kawasaki, and Spike said he knew how to ride a motorcycle. Her helmet was shaded, and Spike said the sun was low enough he could make it work. He’d certainly taken off with great aplomb. 

She had found her way back to streets she knew and pulled up to the front of the house on Revello Drive just as Spike was getting off her Kawasaki. He’d taken off the helmet and it was hanging from the handlebars, and his hair was mussed and curly from the wind. He looked startled by her arrival, and slid something down behind his leg. Buffy got out of her mom’s car and came up to him. “You okay?” 

“Your jacket’s small,” he complained. He’d taken that off, too. He untied it from his waist and handed it to her. There were rips and wear from bird claws on the denim. Actually, it looked pretty cool. 

“But are _you_ okay?” 

“Nothing won’t heal by tomorrow,” Spike said. 

Buffy checked out the arm closest to her. There were scratches and some punctures, but nothing that looked dire. Still, she was the one who was supposed to take the risks. Not that it mattered, since he was an evil vampire, but it still felt weird to have given the responsibility of fighting something to someone else. “Sorry I couldn’t take the bike. Someone else had to wear the helmet, or they’d have known it wasn’t me right off.” 

“Hey, it’s good to get out of the house for a bit. Been holed up with Dru for a while now.” He was still holding something large behind his leg. 

“What’s that?” Buffy asked. 

Spike shifted, hiding the thing more. “What’s what? It’s nothing.” 

“What is it?” She grabbed his arm. 

“Just picked up some Mountain Dew.” 

He had a Big Gulp cup in his hand, complete with lid and straw. How had he carried it on the bike? She raised an eyebrow, but before she had time to say anything the front door opened. “Buffy! You’re back!” 

“Mom! Get back in the house!” Buffy turned and ran to her mother, shoving her into the house. “If you have even a hand out the door, a vampire can drag you out. You’re not even safe on the porch. Get inside.” 

“I’m sorry, I was just so glad to hear the car. Did those birds hurt you? Are you all right?” 

“Yes, yes, I’m fine, would you just get away from the door?” 

“Are there any vampires out there?” 

“Not that I saw, unless you count Spike, but that’s not the point. Stay inside at night. That’s the deal in Sunnydale. Stay the fuck inside!” 

“Don’t use that kind of language in front of your mother,” Joyce said. 

Buffy groaned and tilted her head back in exasperation as Spike slipped in behind her. “Excuse me,” he said, and headed down to the basement with his Big Gulp. Buffy’s eyes followed him, but she had bigger fish to fry right now. 

“Mom,” she said. “Mom, I don’t--” 

“Before you say anything,” Joyce said, “I want you to know I understand.” 

Buffy blinked. “What?” 

“Well. I don’t understand, actually,” Joyce said, sagging a little. “This is entirely beyond me. But Mr. Giles explained things to me, and I’m beginning to understand. Is there a place we can talk?” 

Buffy finally realized that everyone but Spike and Drusilla was standing or sitting awkwardly in the living room, watching them. Giles was pretending to look away, but Anyanka was staring blatantly, and Larry and Oz were only half pretending to be engaged in some kind of talk on the couch. Angel was lurking behind them. 

“Okay, guys,” Buffy said. “Thanks for looking after my mom. You can go home now.” 

“We didn’t patrol,” Oz said. 

“We can skip a night, I think,” Giles said. “It’s already well after curfew.”

“Angel, will you escort them home?” Buffy asked him. 

Angel looked uncomfortable, but nodded. “If that’s what you want.” 

“It is, thanks,” Buffy said brusquely. “We can go to my room,” she told Joyce. She led her up the stairs and into her bedroom. 

“Do you always lock your door?” Joyce asked as Buffy locked it behind them. 

“They’re vampires, not kittens,” Buffy said. “They can break the door down, but I’d rather not give them the advantage of sneaking in. Angel in particular has this crush on me, it’s kind of creepy.” 

“He did seem to stare at me a lot. But they’re under a -- a geas not to kill?” 

“For now,” Buffy said. “We’ll see how that plays out.”

Joyce took Buffy’s hand and led her to the mattress, where they sat down. “Buffy, why didn’t you tell me any of this stuff when it happened? Mr. Giles tells me that this whole vampire slayer thing happened before the divorce.” 

“Would you have believed me?” Buffy said. “Would you have let me fight them? Or would you have locked me up and just let people die?” 

“But why is it _your_ job? Why couldn’t someone else have been chosen for this mystic duty? Why not a policeman or a soldier? Why a fifteen year old girl?” 

“That’s just the way it is, Mom. It’s the way it’s always been done.” 

“But you didn’t ask for this. Have you ever thought about just not being the slayer?”

“That’s not how it works. The power was given to me. I don’t have a say in it.” 

“But you do have a say about whether or not you actually do any fighting,” Joyce said. “These watchers, they tell you to hunt vampires, and you do it. But couldn’t you just tell them no?” 

Buffy’s forehead puckered. She knew it would be too hard to explain. “Mom, it’s not just strength. It’s a calling. It’s… it’s like a hunger. Like… like the vampires need for blood. If I can’t find a vampire, when I don’t kill one, everyone who dies, that’s on me.”

“It is absolutely not your fault if someone else kills someone,” Joyce said. “That’s not how culpability works.” 

“But that’s how I feel,” Buffy said. “I was given the strength and the instincts to hunt the vampires. If I don’t do it, no one else can.” 

“Certainly other people can. Mr. Giles and his young friends do.” 

“They save people. They go around and they drag latecomers in from the streets. That’s not the same as killing the vampires.” 

“Then why don’t they call in the police, or the army? Why send an innocent girl?”

“Because I have the power to do it!” 

“This is becoming a cyclic argument, Buffy.”

“It’s not an argument at all. You’re refusing to see that being the slayer is what I am. Full stop, no argument, there’s nothing else I _can_ be. If I don’t do it, people die.” 

“If you do do it, you might die.” 

“I will die,” Buffy said. 

That stopped Joyce up short. “What?” 

“No slayer has ever lived past twenty-five. When one falls, another one rises. We’re like Whack-A-Mole.” 

Joyce stared at her, her mouth open. “And you just… accept that?” 

“I didn’t at first,” Buffy said. “But I do now.” 

Joyce was dumbstruck. She turned away, shaking, and Buffy wanted to reach out and hug her, tell her it was okay, it was just fate, but she couldn’t do that. It was all her fault her mother felt bad in the first place. 

“That’s why I just… left,” Buffy said finally. “Why I didn’t tell you anything. I knew, no matter what happened, that it wouldn’t matter. I was already dead. Or as good as dead. Better that you didn’t know the details.” 

“I still don’t understand.” Joyce’s voice shook. “Why do you have to do it? Why can’t you just stay home?” 

“The vampires will hunt me when they find out who I am, that’s one thing,” Buffy said. “The watchers… well, they don’t like people defying them, either. They have… teams… that clean up sometimes. And they don’t just clean up after demons. They can… decide to kill me, and they might do it. They’re that kind of people. And as for the rest… it’s a calling, Mom. When I don’t have something to slay, I get restless. I get… self-destructive. Besides, _I_ don’t matter. I’m just one girl, I can be replaced. But the hunters, when they go rampant, they can kill dozens, hundreds, thousands. And it’s my job to stop that.”

“You cannot be replaced,” Joyce said. “There may be other slayers, but there is only one Buffy. Don’t you understand that? You are my daughter. There is no one who can ever, ever be you.” She reached forward and took Buffy’s shoulders. “You matter. You do.” 

Buffy closed her eyes, wincing at the look on her mother’s face. 

“You matter, Buffy.” 

“I’m still the slayer,” Buffy said. “You’ve got to understand that.” 

Joyce’s head sank. “I told myself that it didn’t matter what you were doing, what you were involved in, if I could just be part of your life again. And I meant that. I can’t stop you from doing what you feel you need to do. But I need you to feel that you can come to me. That you don’t have to stand in this -- even this -- all alone. You’re not one girl in all the world, no matter what these watchers say. You’re Buffy, you’re not replaceable, and you don’t have to stand alone.” 

Buffy sighed. She didn’t say it. _But I am alone_ , she thought. _I will always be alone._

***

Xander ducked as Willow threw another doll at the wall. She screamed and ranted, and another porcelain figure hit the concrete. 

“Willow,” Xander said, half high on her rage and half worried for her. The opposing emotions made him sound rather indifferent. “You need to calm down.” 

“I’m not going to _calm down_ ,” Willow shouted at him, and she threw another of Drusilla’s dolls at his head. He ducked, but she wasn’t really trying to hit him. “I was this close. _This close!_ It was almost sunset! All we had to do was follow it!” She picked up the now dead bird on the table. “I just had to follow it!” 

“Well, you can’t follow it now,” Xander said. “You killed it.” 

“The spell already broke!” Willow threw the bird against the wall, where it left a smear of blood as it squashed. “I told you! The rune disappeared! Somehow the wretched slayer broke the spell!” 

“You told me she couldn’t do that,” Xander said. “Not unless she split the flock. Isn’t that impossible for one girl alone to do?” 

“Yes, it is!” Willow yelled. Then she stopped and frowned. “Yes. It is. Oh!” She whined and sat down on the floor. 

Xander felt it was safe to come up to her again. He knelt down beside her and ran a hand over her hair. “It’ll be fine, Will, you’ll see.” 

“It will not be fine. Don’t you understand? Buffy got help somewhere. Maybe Angel, maybe those white hats. She’s not alone, do you understand that? She’s got more than just that librarian, and she _gets_ that. She’s working with help. We’re not just facing one slayer, we’re facing the slayer and whatever else she’s got on her side now.” 

“Well, we’re not alone, are we? We have each other. And the Mayor’s on our side, and that’ll do for us. We’re the forces of darkness. We can make this work. You know we can.” 

“Oh, Xander.” Willow whined and curled up against him. “This is taking too long. The Mayor’s going to call in reinforcements or something if I can’t handle this slayer.” 

“Well, then we’ll have to work with that,” Xander said. “Come on, Will, I hate when you get all mopey.” 

“Don’t call me mopey,” Willow said, but she sounded lighter. 

“Mopey, dopey.” He touched her nose. 

She sighed, but settled down. Her shoulders relaxed, and he could feel her tension ease beneath his hands. “You’re a good friend, Xander,” Willow said. She took in a deep breath and leaned her head against him for a moment. Good. She was less dangerous, at least to him. “Now,” she said. “Bring me someone to eat.” 

“You know, I’m not your minion,” Xander said with a smirk. 

“Sure you are,” Willow said with a grin. “When I want you to be.” 

“What do you say we go hunting together? Even if we can’t track down the slayer, we can still go out.” 

“Think we can find a pretty girl?” Willow asked. 

“You have the best taste.” 

***

The taste of blood still lingered on her tongue, as her new pet squawked and shuffled in its too-small cage. “I’ll get you a bigger cage, pet,” Spike promised, but until then the raven hunched down and couldn’t spread its wings. It was almost better that way. She fed it droplets of blood from off the straw, catching the blood in the straw with her finger, sticking it through the bars of the live-trap, and dribbling it onto the raven’s beak. _Don’t break their fingers,_ the raven said in her mind. _They tickle and pinch_. 

Drusilla sighed, knowing the raven was right. She sagged in her chair, trying to gather the strength for the stairs. She could hear the slayer up there, the end, the hunter, she could hear her in the kitchen and Dru stood up and lost the strength in her legs, despite the blood coursing through her. This happened sometimes, though she tried not to show it to her little boy, her Spike, her joy, but he was asleep now, sprawled fruitlessly naked in their bed, and it was so sad, he wanted so much that she couldn’t give him. She hadn’t been able to hurt him for months now, for years, forever. And he couldn’t hurt her, because it made her too weak, and so they’d had nothing but the passive collapse of closeness, never the sting of pain and passion, and it was a shame, because her boy was so pretty, pretty, like the raven, but here she was alone, always alone, even with her pretty raven boy, she was so alone.

She crawled to the stairs and crept up them slowly, slowly, so they didn’t creak, dust staining the pretty red dress Spike had bought, but that’s all right, because she hated it anyway, it was too thin, too loose, too flowing, too modern, but he’d tried, with what he could find, and he meant well, and she crawled up the stairs and opened the door just an inch to peer outside.

There was the slayer, cuddled with her mother over the kitchen counter, and Joyce was saying, “And this button is to redial the last call made on the phone, I think.” 

“Mom, I can read the instructions myself.” 

“I just want to make sure you know how it works.” She handed the little plastic box over to Buffy, who flipped it open and pressed a few buttons on it. 

“And I’ll pay for that for at least a year. I’ll pay for it forever if you let me call you every once in a while,” Joyce said. 

“Call in the mornings,” Buffy said. “I’m unlikely to be slaying anything then.” 

“I can always call back. I’m surprised you didn’t already have one.” 

“Well, I can’t have it going off at night when I’m on the hunt. It might give away my position,” Buffy said. “So I’ll probably have it off a lot. But a cell phone’s a good idea, so. Just know if I don’t answer, it’s not because I’m ignoring you. I just can’t get to it right away. Or I’m dead.” 

“Buffy!” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll tell my watchers to let you know when I die. Least they can do.” 

Joyce sighed. “I don’t like you thinking that way.” 

“What way? That I’m going to die? I told you, I’m used to it now.” 

“I will never get used to it,” Joyce said. “And I will never understand it. But I love you, and I want to be part of your life -- whatever that life might be.” 

“Full of pain and death goblins, nipping at her heels,” Drusilla said, sneaking out of the basement door. She used the door jamb to hoist herself onto her feet, which were bare. She couldn’t handle pretty shoes these days, and she wouldn’t wear shoes that weren’t pretty. 

“Hi, Dru,” Buffy said, sounding resigned. 

Drusilla regarded her and then turned her attention to Joyce. The woman’s blood was thick in her veins, and she would scream so prettily when Dru bit her. She didn’t have to kill her, just bite her arm off and let the blood flow… she could keep her alive. “She won’t survive,” Drusilla said, because the slayer’s heavy weight still dragged the words from her like a swallowed shoestring out of her throat. “She’s made of butterfly wings and sharp spines, and it doesn’t matter how she catches the fishies in her nets, they swim away, and swim away, and break their backs on the rocks below.” She wanted to cry, she was so hungry still. She hadn’t killed in so long. “Slayer. It won’t be you that breaks first.” 

“Are you all right?” Joyce said, coming up to her. The meat lady reached her arm out to support her, and Buffy pulled Joyce back again. 

“Don’t,” the slayer said. “She’s unpredictable.” 

“I only wanted some wine,” Dru said, and lost her strength. She fell, but being by the stairs meant she fell down them, tumbling head over heels into the basement with a loud rumble. The woman screamed, and even the slayer called out, and Spike exploded from the bed with a snarl, and leaped over to cradle Drusilla up, and Buffy sent Joyce away while she came down to help him. 

“Is she all right?” Buffy asked. 

“No, she’s not bloody all right, she just fell down the bloody stairs, you bloody bitch!” Spike yelled at her. 

“Fuck you, I’m trying to help!” Buffy said. 

“I don’t fucking need your help,” Spike yelled at her, but he sounded tormented. “I need her better!” He carried Dru to the bed and laid her down, checking her for broken bones. Bruises were inevitable. 

“Do you always sleep naked?” Buffy asked him. 

Spike glared at her. “Offend your delicate sensibilities? It’s my lair down here, I wear what I like.” 

“It’s my lair. I let you lair. There’s no yours about this lair.” 

“Can we hare off about the lair some other time?” Spike snapped. “Dru’s hurt.” 

“I know she is. Is there anything she needs? More blood?” 

“Doesn’t help!” Spike yelled. He reached down and caressed Drusilla’s hair. “It’s me, darkness, come on, talk to me.” His voice gentle like mother birds. “You hurt anywhere?” 

“Not enough,” Drusilla whispered. “Can’t you find a branding iron?” 

Spike groaned and kissed her palm. “You can’t endure it, my sweet. Not yet. Soon. We’ll find your cure, and then everything you’ve ever wanted. Hot irons and chains and horsewhips, all right, pet? Just not yet.” He kissed her wrist, and then up her arm, and tucked her back into the bed. 

He turned back to Buffy. “What happened?” 

“I don’t know. She came up the stairs, said creepy things to my mom, and then fell. What do we do?” 

“Get translating that damned manuscript!” Spike yelled. “Don’t you get it? She’s dying! If she dies, it’s all lost!” 

“We’re _trying_ to translate the manuscript, all right?” Buffy yelled back at Spike. “The whole deal was _actually_ to find Willow, if you remember, not to play nursemaid to crazy until she’s well enough to kill again.”

“You think that’s why I want this? I love her, you heartless bitch!” 

And Drusilla lay back and watched the two. Spike was naked and pale and helpless, and the slayer was dressed all in black jeans and black tank top, the darkness and the light transfixed by the other, and Dru laid her head back and wept silently, for she saw lights dazzling above their heads, burning ashes, swirling fires, the kind of fire she hadn’t felt in ages, and they kept shouting until her Spike grabbed the slayer’s arms, and the slayer punched him in the face, and they roared at each other like baby tigers at play, tiger, tiger, burning bright, and she couldn’t stop them, she couldn’t stop them, and she called out silently, desperately, and whether it was her, or whether it was the shouting, he came, like a savior he came, her Angel, swirling down the stairs to break up the fight between Spike and the slayer. 

“What is going on here?” 

_He’s leaving me,_ Drusilla didn’t say. _He’s burning up even as I watch him, burning down the hours like a candle._

“I’m just trying to tell him, we’re doing all that we can,” Buffy said. “Giles isn’t a wizard. Well… maybe he is a wizard. But he can’t just snap his fingers and make sense of nonsense.” 

“And I only agreed to this bullshit because you promised Dru would get her cure!” Spike said. “If Dru dies, the deal is off, sweetheart, you get that? You’ll live, thanks to this dumb geas, but you’ll live in multiple pieces.” 

“Oh, you think I can’t give as good as I got? Watch me immerse you in holy water until there’s nothing left but a scream! I wouldn’t be killing you personally, but I’d sure as hell see you die.” 

“Can we stop threatening each other?” Angel said, holding the two apart, and goodness, what a show. Dru’s tears turned to laughter, and she chuckled in her bed. “Spike, put some pants on.” 

“If she can’t handle me in all my glory, there’s no way she can handle Willow,” Spike snapped, but he stalked away and dragged a pair of jeans from off the floor. 

“Now what exactly happened?” 

“Dru happened. She fell down the stairs,” Buffy said, and Angel, her sweet Angel, he turned to her and took her hand and looked her over, and Drusilla nearly began to cry again. He could see her! He could really see her! 

“You all right, Dru?” Angel asked.

“Yes, Daddy,” Drusilla whispered. “Tuck me in, Daddy. They’ll only spin in circles until they find the key.” 

“Key? What key?” Angel asked. 

“The key to the book. And the longer they circle, the worse it’ll be.”

“Wait. You mean it’s a code?” Buffy asked. “This whole time we’ve been trying to translate nonsense because we needed a decoder ring?” 

“Makes sense,” Spike said. “DuLac didn’t want anyone else knowing he was consorting with vampires and whatall.” 

“Well, where would we find a decoder ring? Or whatever this key is?”

“Where death and death meet,” Drusilla told her.

Buffy sighed. “Anyone else want to decode _that_?” 

“It’s not a riddle, she just means where death lies. Did DuLac have a crypt or a burial place?” Spike asked. 

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Giles.” 

“Well, you’d better get on that, then, hadn’t you?” Spike asked, sounding sarcastic. 

“That holy water’s still not off the shopping list yet, Spike,” Buffy snapped. “I’ll call Giles. But you try to get Willow’s location out of her before she dies.” 

Drusilla waited until Buffy had left, and her Angel followed her like a wistful puppy before she turned to Spike. “But you know where the Willow and her poor whipped will are.” 

“Shh,” Spike said, touching her lips gently. “They don’t know that yet.” He caressed her hair. “Not until you’re better, my sweet. And then, we feast.” 

Drusilla smiled, and sighed. “If it were only that simple, my love,” she murmured, but sleep was taking her, and she wasn’t sure he could hear her over the pixies hissing in her mind. 


	10. And More

“So where is this crypt?” Oz asked. 

“Giles said it was somewhere at this side of the cemetery,” Buffy said, consulting the rough map Giles had made her. It was daylight, since there was no point in doing finicky work at night in danger if she didn’t have to. She’d brought Larry and Oz with her to help carry the equipment, shovels, crowbars, bolt cutters. She didn’t know what she’d need to break into a man’s crypt. Graverobbing wasn’t actually high on her skillset list. Usually the contents of the graves just broke out on their own, and ran up to her. 

“Do you patrol here much?” Larry asked. 

“Older part of the cemetery, usually it’s pretty quiet around here,” Buffy said. “It’s the new graves that are hopping, you know that.” 

“We’re at a crypt marked Evans,” Oz remarked. 

“It’s at least two more big crypts farther,” Buffy said. She frowned at the map. “If that’s a crypt. Is that a crypt, or a tree?” 

“I think it’s a tree,” Oz said, looking over her shoulder. “Giles isn’t an artist.” 

“It’s just down there,” Larry said, pointing at a large crypt further down the path. 

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been here before. This is where the old, rich families of Sunnydale are buried,” Larry said. “Some of their crypts and stones are beautiful. My mom used to take me here and do stone rubbings.” 

His companions looked at him. 

“What? The carvings are really ornate. See? Check out the ivy pattern on that one.” 

“Just… hidden depths to you, man,” Oz said. 

“So how long have you two known each other?” Buffy asked them. “Friends forever?” 

“No, only about a year,” Larry said. “I used to be really uptight. Then Oz here had--”

“Don’t tell her,” Oz said quietly. 

“I won’t tell her,” Larry said. “Oz had a bit of a crisis and Giles reached out to me, and it kind of woke me up a little about what was important.”

“Don’t tell me what?” Buffy asked. “What was your crisis?” 

“Nothing special. Just personal stuff,” Oz said. He lapsed into his occasional random silence, and Buffy shrugged and put it in the back of her mind to sniff at later. 

“So that’s it?” Buffy asked, running ahead of the boys. They had to trot to keep up with her, carrying the tools. “Yep, there it is, DuLac.” The double doors had grating over the windows, and urns outside with reliefs of women on them. It was fairly ornate for Sunnydale. “I think crowbar?” 

“Crowbar,” Larry said, and Oz handed it over. Larry tucked it into a crevice at the door and started prying. He grunted and strained, his wrestler’s muscles cording as he tried to snap the bolts that kept the crypt door in place. 

“Um, why don’t you… uh… let me?” Buffy asked as Larry culminated in a power grunt and his face turned purple. “Really, you don’t have to--” She stopped and waited for Larry to get winded. Didn’t take long. 

“Okay, here,” Buffy said when he finally stopped. He backed off, panting, and Buffy shifted her arm, and _snap_ , one bolt. And she shifted the crowbar lower, and _snap_ , the other bolt, and the door creaked open on long neglected hinges. 

“Sure,” Larry said with panting good humor. “Make a guy feel inadequate.” 

“Oh, don’t worry, you are,” Buffy said. “That’s why they all love you, I’m sure.” 

Larry chuckled, and Oz said, “He’s not kidding. There was a time he would have tried to hit you over something like that.” 

“I was a real bully,” Larry said. “But I think trying to match muscles to a superhero is a little like trying to match wits with one of those big brains from Star Trek. You need the flashlight?” 

“Yeah,” Buffy said, accepting it. The crypt was windowless and dusty. The only light came from the windows in the doors. “There he is.” She shone the light on the side and saw the name carved into the crypt wall. “Josephus DuLac.” 

“Now what tool do we need?” Oz asked. 

“Hate to say it, but the hammer.” 

Oz hefted Buffy the sledge hammer, and she aimed it at the side of the crypt where the coffin was probably interred. 

“Oh,” Larry said. 

“Yeah?” 

“Try not to hit the carving.” 

Buffy wanted to laugh at his innocence, but she shifted aim to strike away from the name itself. _Clang_. The metal struck marble with a sound that echoed out into the cemetery. _Clang. Clang. Clang, crunch._ The marble crumbled and a hole opened up, revealing the wood of a coffin. Buffy hit the marble again. More chunks came off until there was an opening wide enough to slide the coffin out. 

“This is fairly macabre,” Oz said conversationally as he helped her lower the coffin to the floor. 

“You gotta unscrew it,” Buffy said. 

“And how do you know this?” 

“Just unscrew the thing,” Buffy said. “Unless you want me to hit it with the crowbar.” 

The coffin unscrewed slowly, with Buffy starting each of the old screws before leaving them to Oz to finish. When they got the last screw undone, Oz tried to lift the lid. It was stuck. 

“Crowbar,” Oz suggested. 

Buffy went for the crowbar and shifted it under the coffin lid. With a creak the coffin opened, and Buffy shuddered. “Ew,” she said. “Ew, ew, ew.” The corpse inside was a hundred years old, so anything that might have pooled or sucked or stank had turned musty and inert, but grinning teeth and bony hands and general ickiness was still a giant factor. “Well? Where is it? Is he wearing a ring or something?” 

“No.” 

“Is there anything around his neck? Anything on the coffin lid?” 

“No, and no.” Oz looked uncomfortable. “Look, if you want to look, you’re gonna have to touch him.” 

“I don’t want to touch him!” 

“I’m not the slayer.” 

“Fine, I’ll touch him.” Buffy reached down and looked around the corpse’s neck, ripping the ancient cloth from his body. “Nothing there.”

“Well, that’s it, then.”

“That can’t be it,” Buffy snapped. “I didn’t go through all this ick just for that to be it.” 

“Well, what else can we do?” Larry asked. “Did Drusilla say anything else?” 

“Just where death and death meet,” Buffy said. “Dammit!” She hit the wall. “I hate dead ends!” 

“Uh… you broke the wall there a little,” Oz said. 

It felt like she’d broken her hand there a little, but it would heal. She frowned at the dent in the wall. That didn’t feel very thick. “Give me the sledge hammer.” 

Larry handed it over. “What are you doing?” 

“I’m going to take this whole fucking building apart,” Buffy said. “Sorry if there’s any carvings you’re in love with.” 

Larry sighed. 

She took pity on him. “Could you do a look out?” she asked. “Make sure there’s no nasties or anything?” 

“Yeah,” Larry said, and slipped out the door. Buffy slammed the sledge hammer into the wall. A sizable hole appeared. Nothing was in it, not even another coffin. Buffy went to the next panel on the wall and slammed it. Nothing. 

Buffy didn’t expect Larry to see anything, because it was daylight, and the things that go bump usually bumped in the night, but while Buffy was preparing to knock out the next panel in the wall, Larry poked his head back in. “Uh, guys?” 

“What is it?” Buffy said.

“You’d better hurry up. We’re about to have company.” 

“Vampires can’t walk by day,” Oz said. 

“Not vampires. Cops,” Larry said, and Buffy swore. She hated the police. They just got in her way and usually got themselves killed. 

“Dammit,” Buffy said, and slammed the marble one last time, to hit the last panel. A hole opened up, and something inside glittered. “Shit, I got something.”

“What is it?” Oz asked. 

“I don’t know, but it’s too big to carry out.” She switched the sledgehammer for the crowbar and hit the ornate black box inside. It shattered, and there inside was a shining golden cross. “That’s it. That has _got_ to be it.” She snatched it out of the hole.

“Shit, shit, shit, guys, they’re coming!” Larry said. 

Buffy shoved the cross into Oz’s shirt. He was the fastest apart from her, and she didn’t want him caught. “You go,” she said, shoving Oz outside. “Get that to Giles.” 

“What are you doing?” Larry said as Oz pushed him through the gravestones. 

“Playing bait, now _go!_ ” Buffy didn’t watch as the boys ran through the cemetery, but instead looked over the gravestones to where the cops had started running their way towards her. She waited until she was sure they were targeting her, and then took off through and over the stones, running with the sunlight on her face and the wind in her hair. It was kind of fun. Cops were simple compared to vampires, and she knew she’d escape them easily. 

Then a gunshot rang out behind her, and the taste of iron flooded her mouth in instinctive fear. Vampires she could fight. Guns were not her natural enemy. She froze her easy dance over the gravestones, angry at being scared. “What the fuck!” She turned and yelled at the cop behind her. “Did you just shoot at me?” 

“Hold still!” the policeman behind her yelled, holding his gun at the ready. “You are under arrest for vandalism. Put your hands over your head.” 

“You’d shoot a girl for vandalism?” Buffy snapped, her hands slowly going over her head. She’d been shot before. It wasn’t fun. “Victimless, non-violent crime, guys! Dude! I’m not even armed.” 

“You were reported with weapons.” 

“Reported? We were just playing a stupid game,” Buffy said. “There is no call to shoot someone for that.” 

“Who were your accomplices? Don’t put your hands down!”

“You need to read me my rights before you start questioning,” Buffy said. “Didn’t they teach you that in cop school?” 

The policeman was soon caught up by his partner, a woman with a deceptively slight build, whose grip on Buffy’s arm belied the woman’s size. “Nice biceps. You work out?” Buffy asked. “Do you enjoy your job?” she added as she put Buffy’s wrists in handcuffs. “Is it the kind of thing you think a girl like me could get into?” 

“We don’t hire felons who defile corpses,” the woman said. 

“Hey, corpse is totally non-defiled,” Buffy said. “We just looked at him.” 

“You have the right to remain silent,” the woman said, and Buffy sighed. This was not the first time she’d been arrested. The watchers would sort it out for her. She just needed to call Wes. At least from what she could see, Oz and Larry had gotten away with the DuLac cross. 

***

Buffy waited in the police office, her wrist handcuffed to a chair. She started counting the dots in the ceiling tiles while she tapped her thumb. She supposed she ought to use this time to meditate or something, but she was just bored. Getting arrested was always the most boring thing. They always asked the same questions, got the same answers -- nothing beyond her watcher’s name and number -- and got increasingly frustrated with her. She wouldn’t even tell them her name, though they’d searched her pockets and found her wallet and both IDs, the one with her real age and the one with her fake age that she used for car rentals, getting into clubs where vampires lurked, and generally being able to function without prejudice. 

But she’d been here for five hours already. It was taking them forever to process her. She suspected they were going slow on purpose, though why, she wasn’t sure. Sunnydale was strange. Nothing functioned quite the way it did in the outside world. 

“That’s right, sir,” said the policeman whose desk she was sitting beside. He was talking into his phone, and even the phone call seemed to make him nervous. “Yes, that’s right, sir. DuLac. No, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir.” 

Buffy didn’t know who he was talking to, and it didn’t matter. In a few minutes another phone call would come down, either Wes or someone Wes had called, and they’d get her out of this. That’s how it always went down. 

“Could I get some water?” Buffy asked a passing policewoman. She usually never asked for water -- denying her bathroom rights was one of the things police delighted in -- but it had been a lot of hours now. 

The policewoman looked at her, glanced at the cop on the phone, and then shook her head. Buffy rolled her eyes and leaned back. “Come on, Wes, get me out of here.” 

Finally the policeman hung up the phone and turned to Buffy. “You think you’re going to walk out of here, do you?” 

“Vandalism doesn’t carry a heavy sentence.” 

“It might in this town. Did you know that the DuLac family was very well respected by our very own Mayor?” 

“How the fuck could the Mayor know old DuLac? He’s been dead a hundred years.” 

The cop’s face closed, and he sniffed. “I said the family.” 

“Again, dead a hundred years,” Buffy said. “Didn’t have any kids in the research I heard.” 

“So you researched Mr. DuLac, did you?” 

“No. I was just there. And that’s all you get out of me. Without a confession you got nothing. Throw the book at me, set my bail, and then let me get on with my life.” 

“Legally we can keep you for up to twenty-four hours.” 

She’d never stayed in jail that long. 

“But your lawyers have called. They seem… pretty on the ball for petty vandalism by an eighteen year old girl.” 

“Seventeen,” Buffy said. 

“But the Mayor would like to keep you here. He’s not happy.” 

“Since when does the mayor’s opinion of a petty criminal change the course of justice?” 

“Lots of things can happen in a town like Sunnydale,” said the policeman, his voice dark and sinister. 

Buffy leaned forward. “Is that supposed to worry me?” 

“We could chain you up outside,” the policeman said. “Curfew’s starting in less than an hour. You know what that means, don’t you?” 

“It means,” Buffy said, “that you’d never see me again.” She could snap out of these handcuffs in about twelve seconds, two if she found a lever like a metal pen. She was only still sitting there out of the goodness of her heart. 

The front door opened and a scuffle occured by the front desk. “I’m here to pick up Buffy Summers.” 

“Yeah, Giles, I’m here!” Buffy called out. 

“Would you show her out, please?” Giles asked. 

“We still have some forms to fill out.” 

“Ugh!” Buffy stood up. “Can we get me out of here, please? I’ve never had to hang out in a cop’s office this long.” 

“Just hold on, Buffy!” Giles called back to her. He spoke low to the cop at the front desk again. 

“See?” Buffy said. “You won’t be able to hold me here.” 

The cop processing her looked scared. 

“What’s the matter?” Buffy asked. “Don’t want to have to tell that to the Mayor?” 

He didn’t answer. A second later Giles came up and slammed a piece of paper on the cop’s desk. The policeman looked at it, frowned, and said, “I’ll have to make a phone call first.” 

“Be my guest. In the meantime, unhandcuff this woman.” 

The cop hesitated, then pulled keys out of his pocket and undid the handcuffs. He turned and dialed his phone, and then hesitated while Buffy snagged her wallet off his desk, and she and Giles made their way through the office.

“I haven’t given you permission to go, yet!” he called after them. 

“Her lawyers have,” Giles snapped. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the growing shadows. “We have to hurry. Curfew has almost gone.” 

“What’s that matter to us? Any luck with the cross? Oz got back okay?” 

“Larry and Oz got back to me just before your watcher called to give me a dressing down for letting you get arrested. He insists I should have sent you at night to fetch this artifact. I told him at night you’d be at risk from vampires, but he seemed more irate about your expense account than your life.” 

“Wes isn’t that bad,” Buffy said. “He just thinks Slayers are the guardian of the night or some shit, so he never sends me out in the day.” 

“Well, it was safer.” 

“Until the cops started shooting,” Buffy said. 

Giles’s hand squeezed her shoulder, an affectionate gesture Buffy wasn’t expecting from him, and then led her into his ancient Citroen. “What about the cross?” Buffy asked. 

“It is the key. I’ve already translated a few pages, and I found the spell that’s supposed to restore a vampire back to her original state. Spike was literally singing once I found it. I only stopped working when Wyndam-Pryce told me he’d gotten the papers for your freedom. Had to get them faxed over at the school, though.” 

“So we’re that much closer to finding Willow?” 

“To curing Drusilla, at least. And she has proven she has powers of sight, so… quite likely. As to the rest… I’m sorry to have put you in that position.” 

“You’re a watcher,” Buffy said dully. “It’s your job to put me in danger.” 

“Not quite,” Giles said. “I’m neither quite a watcher, nor is that quite our job. And risk of gunfire isn’t the same as a risk from a creature you’re prepared to fight.” 

“Some vampires carry guns,” Buffy said. 

“Yes, but I didn’t think to get you tangled up with the police. It may draw complications.” 

“The watchers can usually hush that stuff up.” 

“Their resources may not extend the same way to Sunnydale,” Giles said. “The Sunnydale police force are a law unto themselves, in many respects. They seem to spend most of their time covering up for vampire attacks, for reasons I have yet to understand. Maybe it’s another symptom of Anyanka’s legacy.” He glanced at Buffy. “I am sorry.” 

“It’s not your fault.” 

“It feels like it is,” Giles said. “Perhaps that’s why I left the Watchers Council. I haven’t the stomach for it.” 

Buffy watched him as he drove into the dusk, and smiled. “Maybe you’re just better than them,” she said. She stretched, feeling kinks in her back from sitting in the hard chair in the police office for hours. “So you said Spike was singing?” she asked. “How awful was that?” 

***

“ _Hey, ho, let’s go. Hey, ho, let’s go._ ” Spike twitched his hips as he set down the salad bowl and wrestled into the fridge. “ _Shoot ‘em in the back now,_ ” he sang. “ _What do they want? I don’t know. They’re all revved up and ready to go._ ” The Ramones droned away in his head as he tossed a little vinaigrette into the salad. He didn’t have a lot to work with, and he wasn’t much of a cook, but he knew this much. “ _They’re piling in the back seat. They’re generating steam heat. Pulsating to the back beat. Blitzkrieg bop._ ” 

Drusilla was going to get better. They’d found the cure, they were going to fix her! Spike carried the salad to the dining room table and reverently moved over the DuLac Manuscript with its precious key cross. He was improvising a little. What he’d have done if one of his minions had pleased him would have been to bring a little someone home for them to rip apart, but that didn’t translate with humans, so he’d thought maybe make some dinner? Giles and Buffy deserved a little something. “ _Blitzkrieg bop,_ ” he sang to himself as he set the table. 

Buffy unlocked the door while he was still laying out knives and forks. “Step on up, kiddies,” he told her and the librarian as they came in. “Dinner’s in ten.” An alarm beeped in the kitchen. “Make that five. You’re just in time.”

“What… are you doing?” Buffy asked. He turned to look at her and found her staring in bewilderment at the set table, the pile of books that had for the first time since Giles started studying there been tamed into a corner, and of course the evil vampire domestically setting out silverware. 

Spike drew himself up to his full height, for the first time feeling a little embarrassed by his gesture. He’d been planning this since before Giles left to pick Buffy up from the police station, but now that it was staring him in the face, he realized it didn’t exactly fit in with the big bad persona. At least he wasn’t wearing an apron or anything. “You, slayer, have been working extra hard for Drusilla, and you, Mr. Librarian, have a hard night of studying and translation in front of you. Thought you could do with a nosh.” 

Buffy blinked. “You set the table,” she said. 

He stood awkwardly. “I did.” 

“You… you set the table. You made salad.” 

“Vampires don’t dust if they do a little salad tossing,” he said defensively. The timer dinged from the stove again. “Hold that thought.” 

He slipped into the kitchen and took the macaroni and cheese out from the oven. Okay, so it was from the freezer. He was no chef. But he knew that Buffy usually ate this stuff standing in the kitchen with an oversized spoon, so he figured if he just added a salad and had her sit down for a tick, it would count as special. He came out with the tray of mac and cheese on a plate to find Buffy and Giles still staring at the dining room table. 

“You can sit down. I didn’t poison it.” He set the tray down on the pot holder he was holding it with, and held out a chair for Buffy. 

Eventually she sat down, gingerly, as if he’d somehow set the table with a live snake. He slid her chair in and turned to the librarian. “Giles, your chair?” 

Giles was cleaning his glasses. Finally he sat down, but Spike noticed his eyebrows remained raised as he stared at the table. He sniffed. “I assume there’s enough for Anyanka?” he asked. 

Spike had forgotten about her, but he had an extra plate. “Yeah, I’ll call the bird down.” He went to the stairs. “Anyanka!” 

“What do you want?” she shouted back after a minute. 

“Food!” 

“My blood’s off limits! Call the butcher!” 

“I mean your food!” 

“What?” 

“Come down and bloody eat!” he shouted, then turned back to the dining room. Buffy was laughing at him. Her hand was over her mouth, but she was bloody laughing at him! 

“Shut your gob,” he snapped at her. He was tempted to storm off, but that would just compound the laughter, so he doubled down and started serving up the mac and cheese. “Here, eat.” 

“Thank you, Spike,” she said, but she couldn’t keep the smirk off her face, and Spike growled low in his chest. Giles looked up at that -- knew what vampire growls meant, did he? -- but Spike was going to thank the wretched blood bags if it killed him, and he wasn’t above being laughed at a little. Or a lot, really. Though he did wish he’d never had the damned impulse, now that he was here. 

“How long before we know enough for Dru’s cure, then?” he asked the librarian. 

“I’m not sure. Once the key was in place, the translation was fairly swift,” Giles said. “I’ve gone through the indices and I think I have the right spell. I’d prefer to read the introduction before I make any judgements on the spell itself.” 

“And how long will that take?” Spike asked politely. 

“I’m not sure. If I start, uh, after dinner, I should have the spell translated tonight.” 

“So tonight then,” Spike said, excitement growing in him. “Truly we’ll know how to cure her tonight?” 

“Presuming the spell is true, though I assume as such. DuLac was quite famous for his occult work.” 

“I’d say he’s famous,” Buffy said. “So famous even the Mayor’s read about him.” 

Spike’s head jerked. “The Mayor?” 

“Yeah. That’s why it took me so long to get out. Apparently he was pissed off someone was poking around vandalizing DuLac’s crypt.” 

“Probably knew the bugger,” Spike said. 

Only to find Giles and Buffy staring at him in disbelief. 

“You don’t know this?” Spike asked. 

“Oh, you weren’t lying,” Anyanka said, poking her head around the door. “I thought Spike was being male at me.” 

“No, apparently Spike has hidden depths,” Giles said, indicating the free plate. “And some information for us?” he added, turning back to Spike. 

Well, this was good. Maybe it would stop them laughing at him. Spike sprawled in a chair. “Mayor’s a sorcerer. Thought everyone in town knew that.” 

“Um, no,” Buffy said. “What kind of sorcerer? Good kind?” 

Spike cocked his head at her. “What do you think? He let the Master run. Sound good to you?” 

“What level of sorcerer?” Giles asked. “Powerful, or merely a kind of hedgewizard?” 

“Oh, powerful enough. Sold his soul for immortality, that kind of thing.” 

“And you didn’t tell us?” Buffy asked. 

“You didn’t ask.” 

Buffy slammed her hand down on the table. “You are the most annoying, exasperating, nasty little bitch of a vampire that ever fucking lived!” 

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Spike grinned.

“Tell us about the Mayor. Now,” Buffy said. “Or I’ll… tell Dru she can’t keep the raven.” 

“Don’t do that! She named it Soot!” Spike barked. It would cause a tantrum, he knew it would, and she wasn’t strong enough for one of those. 

“How immortal are we talking?”

“Don’t know. Not scared of hanging around vampires immortal.” 

“What kind of powers are we talking? Worse than Willow powers? Blood rain and raven stalkers?” 

“Never seen him use any magic, but the Master seemed to think he was hot shit.” 

“How old are we thinking he is?” Giles asked. “If he sold his soul for immortality, what sort of spell was that?” 

“I don’t know. City planning stage, at least. He arranged for all the tunnels in the sewers. Look, the bloke was never any friend of mine, he was a friend of the Master’s.” 

“So if he was a friend of the Master’s,” Buffy said. “That means he’s a friend of Willow, doesn’t it?” 

Spike shrugged, genuinely unsure. 

“And he knows I’ve been poking around the DuLac crypt,” Buffy said. “Which means he knows who I am. So Willow might know where I am. Hell, that means the police could come and grab me any day and hand me over to Willow or the Mayor or both.” 

“Well. It’s nightfall, and they haven’t surrounded the place with vampires yet,” Spike pointed out. “The Mayor and the Master were tight, but they had different agendas. I can’t imagine he’d take kindly to Willow just up and taking his place.” 

“So if they’re on opposite sides, then we might still have a chance.” 

“Well, the police are still covering up after vampire killings,” Giles said. “So we have to assume they have concurrent if not adjacent agendas. This changes everything. We must be twice on our guard now.” 

“Which means we need a seer we can rely on,” Buffy said. Spike said nothing. Curing Drusilla would not, he knew, make her any more reliable. “Giles, eat fast. We need that thing translated. We’re running out of time.” 


	11. We're Done Here

Angel was reading in his room, but he wasn’t getting very far. He kept staring at the same page and having to restart the paragraph he was on. While Spike was downstairs singing and dancing about because they’d found the key to Drusilla’s cure, Angel felt surplus to requirements. Buffy was out there, getting into danger, and she wouldn’t let him help her. Giles could help her, she was even letting Larry and Oz help her, but Angel? There was nothing she wanted him to do except sometimes help the others. She didn’t want him helping her.

And she’d never talk to him. He’d try to open up a dialogue, but ever since she’d rejected his first gift and used it to make getting in the front door a literal pain, he’d felt as if she’d done nothing but put up more barriers. She was helping Drusilla because of her abilities, but she seemed to have no patience with Angel. 

And things had gotten worse. Just before Christmas he’d been having nightmares about his past, his history, some of the terrible things he’d done before he’d gotten his soul. The nightmares had faded before Christmas Eve, but the guilt lingered, and he wished he could do something to ease it, but Buffy wouldn’t let him. She wouldn’t let him, and he couldn’t force her to. No tactic, no charm, no lie or promise seemed able to crack her armor. He just wasn’t a priority for her, and it seemed he was never going to be. 

The knock was a welcome distraction. It was four in the morning, and he caught Buffy’s scent under the door. Maybe she wanted him to go on a patrol or a mission with her? He set his Tolstoy down and climbed off the mattress to open the door, to find Giles and Buffy standing there, looking serious. “Is there something wrong?” he asked. He opened the door wider. “Come in.” 

Buffy entered his room for the first time since she’d put that pile of sheets on his mattress. She looked around. “You redecorated.” 

“I picked up some things from my old place,” Angel said. “The Master’s cronies sort of roughed it up, but I managed to save some of my artwork, some books. Clothes.” Though obviously, they’d known about the clothes, since he’d been wearing them, but they hadn’t mentioned it to him. Buffy didn’t say anything about his art, but she didn’t look impressed. Giles didn’t say anything, either. They both seemed awkward. Angel gestured to the two chairs he had set at angles near the wall. “Please, sit,” he said. If it was something urgent, they’d have already said. “What can I help you with?” 

Buffy said nothing, and Giles said nothing, and Buffy looked at him expectantly, and finally Giles cleared his throat. “Well,” he began, then paused. “Well. As you know, Angel, we’ve been trying to translate a text which we feel holds the cure to Drusilla’s ailment.”

“Yes,” Angel said when he paused again. “Is there some problem with it?” 

“No. No, I’ve managed to translate the relevant chapter.” Giles stopped again. 

“Okay,” Angel said. He looked to Buffy, who was staring meaningfully at Giles. Giles looked to Buffy, and then looked away. He refused to meet Angel’s eyes. 

“Yeah, you might have to die,” Buffy finally said, looking right at him. 

Angel blinked. “Excuse me?” 

“We aren’t sure of that, Buffy,” Giles said quickly. 

“Sounded pretty clear to me,” Buffy said. 

“You could have said it with a little more tact.” 

“Tact is not my strong suit. So Angel, thing is, the way to cure Drusilla is apparently with the blood of her sire. And that’s you. So we wait until the new moon, and there’s some kind of magical dance we gotta do in a church with some mystic incense Giles says he can get, and then some ritual words, and then we tie you and Dru together and stab you both through the hand with the magic cross decoder knife thing, and apparently your strength courses into her, and she’s all better.” 

“It says nothing about you dying,” Giles said quickly. “It gives no indication of how the donor vampire fares after the ritual itself. We would do everything in our power to ensure the recovery of both of you after the procedure.” 

Procedure. Like a medical intervention. “So it doesn’t say I would die?” 

“Not in so many words, no,” Giles said. 

“But it sort of doesn’t seem to care whether you do or not, and since Giles says the rest of the book points the way to a lot of unspeakable evil, it doesn’t look good.” 

Angel thought about this. The fact that they were telling him about it at all didn’t seem to indicate that they’d dismissed the idea as too dangerous. “Have you told Dru and Spike?” 

“Not yet,” Giles assured him. “We thought since you were the one who would be endangered, that it should be your choice how we should proceed.” 

“Does anyone else know?” 

“No,” Buffy said. 

Angel sank thoughtfully down onto his mattress, sitting crosslegged. 

“It is, of course, a given that Spike and Drusilla would not bother to ask your permission should we tell them about the ritual,” Giles said. “And unfortunately Spike will not allow us to keep him in the dark for long. I… had no idea the spell would require such a sacrifice. I’m afraid I already promised him a translation by morning.” 

“So I don’t have long to decide,” Angel said.

“No,” Buffy said. 

“And if I said no?”

“We would have to hide or destroy the manuscript, and thus alienate Spike and Drusilla,” Giles said. “We would be at square one in locating Willow, and lose two allies.” 

“Two unreliable allies,” Angel pointed out. 

“But allies nevertheless,” Giles said. “If we were to truly anger Spike, we might even have to dust both of them before we proceed. Which, of course, given the geas, would be problematic.” 

“But if I say yes, I die.” 

“Perhaps.” 

“But if you say no, Dru almost definitely dies, and Spike will probably make us dust him,” Buffy said. 

“Oh.” 

Angel thought about this. To die. To die, to dust, to give up this terrible existence. He’d never had the courage for it. The sun could call to him every day to end his suffering, but he’d grown up a god-fearing Christian. His blackened soul would surely fall to hell, and no doubt worse suffering than he endured under the daily throttling of his guilt would befall him. To compound his life of sins by tossing on the pile the mortal sin of his suicide seemed nothing but folly. But he’d never been called upon to sacrifice his life in any meaningful way, either. It was all to the good to claim a noble sacrifice for a righteous cause, but what cause was he in any position to stand for? Wars, lives, the future, nothing had stood out to him as being his cause until a demon had told him about a young woman who had been called as the slayer, a pure young girl whose life was about to be thrown into upheaval, and for once he’d felt, _this,_ this is for me, this is my destiny, for this I would be willing to -- 

“Look, I don’t care what you do,” Buffy said, cutting into his reverie. “But decide quick, so I can figure out what my next plan is. If I have to dust Spike, I’d rather do it fast before he forces our hands.”

“You won’t even give me time to think?” 

“There is no time. There is no think. There’s a choice between you and Dru, and you get to make it. Do you want to die, or do you want them to? Spike’s the danger card in this scenario, and I need to figure him out. I don’t have time to sit on your brooding. You get an hour. Come on, Giles.” 

“Wait,” Angel said, following them. “You’re just going to walk off?” 

“I told you what you need to know,” Buffy said. “We’re done here.” 

“Buffy,” Angel said. He moved in closer to Buffy and looked earnestly into her eyes. “Can’t I just talk to you? Alone?”

Buffy looked at Giles. “It seems reasonable,” Giles said. 

Buffy rolled her eyes, stared at the ceiling for a moment in exasperation, then plunked herself down in the chair. Angel noticed she had a stake in her jeans pocket. 

“Thank you, Giles,” Angel said, showing him out. “I’ll come down and let you know what I’ve decided.” 

“I’m going to go and pretend I’m still translating,” Giles said. “Spike keeps asking me how it’s going, every fifteen minutes since midnight. I can’t hold him off for long.” 

“I understand.” 

Buffy had her legs crossed and her fingers were drumming on her thigh, close to her stake. She really didn’t trust him, did she? He sat down in the chair Giles had vacated and tried to get her to look at him. “Buffy,” he said. “I need to know what you want me to do.” 

“I want you to risk it.” 

“Just like that.” 

“Just like that,” Buffy said. 

Angel stood up and went to the window, looking outside without really seeing anything. “Do you really care about me so little?” He knew he sounded like a little boy, but he couldn’t help it. Buffy made him feel like one, like a lovesick teenager. He wanted to draw sketches of her and give her presents and catch her in his arms. And he wanted to bite her and ravish her and hear her scream. He wanted to hate her for what she had done to him, and he thought she was right for rejecting him, and he didn’t know what to do to win her any more than he’d known what to do with his life before she’d come into it. 

“Angel, it’s not about who I care about,” she said. “I’m not in a position to _care_ about people. Not vampires, not humans, not anyone. What did you expect was going to happen? I’d come to Sunnydale and we’d have some epic forbidden love affair, vampire and slayer, on the same side against the world?” 

“What’s wrong with that?” he said, finally looking at her. 

“What’s wrong is, it doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to decide to have an epic love affair all on your own. Maybe before Anyanka did what she did, my destiny and yours could have meshed or something. Maybe. But even if it did, even if I’d wanted to be in love, I’m the slayer. I can’t do that.” 

“Did you want that?” Angel asked. 

“What?” 

“Did you want to be in love? When you were younger, before the world and your calling beat you down, did you want a boyfriend, did you want something pure and innocent?” 

“How could I have had that with you?” Buffy asked. “You’d have had to lie to me about what you were, who you’d been, what we meant. How would that have been pure?” 

Angel felt that. It hurt. 

“Angel, you’d have done nothing but hurt me.” 

“I would have protected you,” Angel said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been hurt.” 

Buffy’s thumb went automatically to the scar on her lip, and she rubbed it before clenching her fist. “I’m the slayer,” she said again. “It comes with the territory.” 

“I could have helped.” 

“But you didn’t,” Buffy said. “And it would have been ugly if you did. My life isn’t for love. My life is for death. Death is my gift to the world. If I’d been doing my job right, Angel? I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you. I’d have killed you.” 

“I can’t believe that. That’s what I wanted to save in you, what I wanted to protect, your sweetness, your innocence. I would have done it.” 

“You?” Buffy said. “With your lies and your stalking and your history of torture? How could you have protected _my_ innocence? And how would seducing me have done any of that?” 

Angel looked away again. “I don’t know what else to do with how I feel about you.” 

There was a long silence. “I hate to tell you this,” Buffy said, her voice gentle, “but it’s not about how you feel. It never was.” 

“I--” He had to say it. He’d get nowhere if he didn’t say it. “I’m in love with you, Buffy,” he said, still not meeting her eyes. 

“You don’t even know me.” 

He turned to her. “I want to. Look, if I do this… if I risk my life for Drusilla, for some vision that will help you fulfill your mission to find Willow… will you give us a chance?” 

“No.” 

He hadn’t expected that flat denial. “What?” 

Buffy stood up, and her face was iron. “No, I will not be manipulated into a relationship with another creepy old guy who wants to get into my fucking pants. And if that’s the kind of card you’re going to play, I’m telling Spike about the ritual _right now_ and get him to chain you up in his manacles for the next two weeks until we can force you into it.” 

He really hadn’t expected that to anger her. “Buffy, if I do this for you, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that you look on us as--”

Buffy slapped him. 

“A possibility,” Angel finished. He was trying very hard not to vamp out at her. “I wasn’t saying… more. Not asking you to succumb to my wiles. Just give us a chance!” 

“Your wiles are evil!” Buffy barked. “Don’t you get that? You’re a vampire, just like all the others. That’s how I caught them, that’s why they came to me, they wanted my blood and my body. You’re no different from them.” 

“And Spike’s different?” Angel asked. 

“What?” 

“I’ve seen you, watching TV together, laughing, eating salad!” 

“Spike didn’t eat the salad, he just made it.” 

“You admit it!” 

Buffy threw her arms up. “Spike’s that kind of guy! He’s a TV-watching, rock-listening, apparently salad-making kind of guy. You’re a hide-up-in-your-room-with-your-pretentious-artwork-brooding kind of guy.” 

“So you’re saying if I was more like Spike, you’d give us a chance.” 

“I’m not someone who gives people that kind of chance,” Buffy said. “If you’d been down chatting with Anyanka, if you’d been blaring music down the street, if you’d been asking me to help you celebrate demon Christmas, yes, we might have been able to talk and laugh and do something other than glare at each other. But does that mean we’d have had some kind of all-encompassing, Romeo and Juliet, slayer/vampire love affair? _No!_ That’s not what I have with Spike, and not what Spike wants with me. We’re roommates, just like you and me are, and I don’t have to justify my relationship with any of these crazy demons to you! This situation is _nuts,_ sue me for watching television!” 

“Buffy, I just want you to think about us.” 

“There is no _us!_ ” She took in a deep breath. “Are we done? Because I’m trying really hard not to stake you right now, and that would be a waste of your blood.” 

“You can’t stake me. There’s a geas.” 

“I could do some damage.” 

Angel’s nostrils flared. “You know, you’re not doing a very good job trying to sweet talk me into this.” 

“I don’t manipulate people into doing what I want,” Buffy said. “I tell them, and they do it, or they don’t.”

“I wasn’t trying to manipulate you--”

“Weren’t you?” 

Angel had to stop. He was. He looked away again. “Then yeah. I guess we’re done.” 

Buffy went to the door. “Do you still want your hour?”

He hesitated. He was tempted to tell her no, and make her go arrange to kill Spike. But that would have been evil. And he was sick and tired of being evil. “I’ll let you know before dawn.” 

“Fine,” Buffy said. “I’ll be keeping Spike off Giles’s back. We’ll be waiting for your answer.” She paused. “If you’d rather just leave, I understand.” 

“But that’s not what you want.” 

She didn’t answer at first. Then, “Not everyone can be called to their death and just agree to it,” she said. “That’s why only one can be the slayer.” She left him alone. 

***

“So what’s it say?” Spike asked for the umpteenth time. “Looks like you got a lot translated there.” He tried to grab for Giles’s notes. 

Giles snatched them back. “I’m still cross-referencing,” he insisted. “It’s very difficult to be certain of the proper ritual ingredients. As it is, I know I’ll have to compound my own incense, and there are other factors. I’m not even certain this is the right spell.” 

“You were sure earlier tonight,” Spike said. “You were all, _oh, it’ll just be another hour, Spike, trust me._ ” 

“I am not your minion, would you please stop trying to order me about?” 

“Spike, get off his back,” Buffy said. She had two red spots high on her cheeks, and her blood smelled like honey. Something had got her emotions heightened. “I don’t have time for you right now.”

“What’s it say there about the new moon?” Spike asked, looking over Giles’s shoulder. 

“Would you please!” 

Buffy came up behind Spike and grabbed his arm, twisting it up behind him until he was immobilized by her. “Spike,” she hissed into his ear, hot breath tickling his neck. “I don’t have the patience for this. Sit down, shut up, and let Giles work.” She shoved him away from her. “Go back to Drusilla, okay? Stop getting in the way.” 

Spike staggered himself forward and turned back to her, feeling cheated out of something. He swallowed a growl. “You said you’d know,” Spike said. “You said we could help her.” 

“I said we might,” Giles said. He sounded tense. “Please leave me be.” 

“Spike, shut up and go downstairs,” Angel said, coming into the dining room. 

“What do you know, ponce?” Spike said. “This has nothing to do with you.” 

“It has more to do with me than it does with you.” Angel turned to Buffy and Giles, whose attention had snapped to him the second he entered the room. He took a deep breath and looked straight into Buffy’s eyes. All the hope seemed to have drained out of Angel, but he had a serenity that Spike hadn’t seen there before. It unnerved him. “All right,” Angel said to Buffy. “I agree.” 


	12. Vampire Nature

“So what seems to be the trouble, Strawberry Chocolate?” 

Willow glanced down Rack’s scruffy form, which belied the power coursing through him at all times. She hadn’t gone to Rack often. Vampire magic and warlock magic were subtly different. She fed on blood and pain and the energy and demonic sacrifice that came with that. He fed on potential and magic, and used that to grow and shift his very being beyond that of the normal plane. He maintained openings to other realms from where he drew magic as if from up a well, and if given the chance to feed upon this realm’s denizens would taste of their magics as if sampling a feast -- already satiated, enjoying their flavors. He said she tasted of dark chocolate with a hint of mortal strawberry, which once made her uncomfortable, but she was used to him by now. Still didn’t mean she enjoyed going to him. 

“There’s a slayer in town,” Willow said. “A vampire slayer. She killed the Master.” 

“So that’s what shifted the balance,” Rack said, idly drawing lines on his desk with his forefinger. Willow couldn’t read them, but she was sure they were glyphs or runes for power or manipulation. She wanted to put up a magical shield, but she knew she’d have to take it down in a moment, anyway. Rack demanded total subservience in exchange for his gifts. Fortunately, he grew bored easily, and liked to sample from his feast again and again, so he almost always let his victims go. Almost always. At least, he’d always let her go before. 

“I’ve taken over as leader of the vampires,” Willow said. 

Rack looked up, and laughed. It was a low, vicious little sound, and it wasn’t friendly. “Little strawberry torte thinks she can run the house, does she?” His eyes glanced down her body. “What do you want with me?”

“I need to increase my power,” Willow said. “People don’t respect me, they don’t believe in me. There’s only so much my killing them and torturing them can do. I can perform spells, but they take time. I need something powerful and immediate, like… like force lightning, or magic missile.”

“You’re showing your age, young one,” Rack said. When Willow opened her mouth he continued, cutting her off, “That’s no flaw. It can be a benefit. Where do you think the slayer draws her power from? It’s only the sacrifice of a young girl’s life that gives the demon that powers the slayer so much strength and hunger. Not youth against age and experience, but youth against youth, fresh life against fresh death, that’s the fight you’re after.” 

“Can you find me a spell like that?” Willow asked. “Can you give me the power to just point my finger and take someone down?” 

“Yes,” Rack said. “But it’s going to cost you. And because you’re already dead, Strawberry Chocolate, it’ll cost you more than you want to pay.” 

“I’ll pay what it’s worth,” Willow told him firmly. “And not one drop more. Or I’ll eat every one of your clients before they come in here. You’ll starve in this dingy little office.” 

Rack laughed again, genuinely amused. “Oh, it’ll be worth it,” Rack said. “You’ll see when you get what you asked for. Don’t you worry about that.”

Willow was nervous, but she was resolved. “I need to be able to kill the slayer,” she said. “The Mayor won’t accept me ruling the vampires until I do. So since that’s the payoff… what’s the exchange?” 

“Your life,” Rack said. He swam through the air up to her, as always slow and languid, like a cold snake. “That’s all it’ll cost, young one. Just your life.” 

“I don’t have a life to give.” 

“You did once,” Rack said. “So lay down and give it to me.” 

Willow gulped. “Lay down?” 

Rack had never claimed her body in that way, and while for most she wouldn’t be opposed, his magics and her magics clashed so wildly that his touch tended to hurt. Life magic and death magic, even life magic from such an evil source as Rack, were not compatible things.

Rack shifted his arms until she found herself lying on the air, and she hoped this wouldn’t take long. Willow had told Xander to hold the fort, and warned him that her visit to Rack might take a while. Rack did not work on anyone’s schedule. She’d even put a misdirection spell on the lair to keep anyone but those given her mark from being able to find it on their own. Still, misdirection spells weren’t foolproof, and the slayer could still get to him if she found a way to cut through it. She’d been hoping to get back to Xander so he wouldn’t have to manage long on his own. 

But when Rack’s fingers danced over her eyes and she found herself in a baby’s crib, blinking at the too bright world around her, while gabbling voices surrounded her, and her mother’s face gazed down upon her tiny body, she knew what Rack meant, that she must give him her entire life, and she was very afraid this might take some serious time after all. Her last thought before her mind reduced itself to that of the baby she had once been was, _I hope Xander’s up to this_. 

***

  
  


Spike slipped out the back and away from the situation comedy he’d been living for the last few weeks. It was all very well living with humans -- or with demon-touched entities that for all intents and purposes counted as human -- but trying to pretend that their ways weren’t exhausting was beyond him. 

It wasn’t like living with minions. Spike didn’t really like living with minions either, if he could avoid it, of course. Minions were trouble. They were stupid, violent, unprincipled thugs who lived like bums when they weren’t put in line. But when you did put them in line, you had someone who knew the rules, who would bow obsequiously when you threatened them, and would get you what you needed when you needed it. They were unquestioningly on your side, and if you ever suspected they weren’t, all you had to do was dust them, and that was it. 

But now Spike just had to put up with the petty annoyances that having roommates could cause. He was used to Drusilla, of course, and her petulance and her tantrums mixed with sweetness and delight. But he had forgotten how devoted she was to Angel, and Angel, of course, was Angel. He took the best blood, he ordered him about, and he always acted as if he were the king of the mountain. Even with the soul the man’s ego took no rest. 

Though he supposed he had to give the bloke a pass for a bit. At least until Dru was all better. Everyone seemed concerned about the idea of Angel giving Dru his blood, but it made perfect sense. Who else should sacrifice a little for her than her own sire? He made the bed of nails, least he could do was lie on it for a spell. 

But it was more than just troubled vampires. It was the whole household. Someone would come downstairs to do laundry, waking him and Dru up. And then Spike would boot them out of his lair, and then Buffy would yell at him. Then someone else would leave the blood out of the fridge, and it would develop a weird taste, so he’d raise a little hell, and then Buffy would yell at him. And then Spike would eat something out of the cupboard, try and liven the blood up with a bit of texture, and he’d eat it all, and then Buffy would yell at him. And then he’d settle down to watch Passions, but Anyanka or Buffy would want to watch something else, and then Buffy would yell at him. 

All right. It was mostly that Buffy yelled at him a lot. 

He didn’t want to say that it started the night they translated the restoration spell for Dru, because Buffy had surely yelled at him before that. But everyone seemed to have gotten worse after that night. Dru was slowly declining again, Anyanka had started complaining that she needed a job, and Angel was sullen, though he had started claiming the TV to watch hockey games on. He and Buffy barely spoke, and Buffy seemed to go out of her way to talk to Spike when they were both in the room, which made Angel give him dark looks. 

If Spike didn’t know better, he’d say Angel and the slayer had broken up, but he was also equally sure that Buffy had never even considered falling for Angel’s charms, so whatever had happened, it wasn’t a break up. Something, whatever it was, had irritated Buffy, disturbed Angel, and worried Giles, and that meant Buffy had become a real shrew. It was putting Spike on edge. 

He knew what he needed to blunt that edge. When Buffy went off with the Library Squad for their nightly patrol, Spike chained Dru up so she’d be comfortable and not wander off, and took off in his DeSoto down the highway to a truck stop he knew of, and had staked out before. He parked his car behind the mini-mart, near a handful of shrubs he knew would make for good cover. He perched in the shadow by the door and waited for victims. 

There were a few potentials. 

“Hey, you got a light?” Spike asked of the man who went into the mini-mart.

“No, sorry, man,” the bloke said, slipping into the store without coming over. Spike sighed. He wasn’t really jonesing for the guy, anyway, but a victim who just walked into your clutches was simple. He lurked in the shadows and waited. It wasn’t his favorite method of hunting. What he really wanted was a chase and a catch, and he might actually try to do that later. But a chase was easier if you knew the area, and could stake out late night joggers, and people walking home from clubs. Trouble was, he could only go to easy driving distance from Sunnydale, and even without a curfew, the area around Sunnydale was overhunted. Those who were going to be stupid in the surrounding area had probably already been stupid in the last year and a half, and the idiots were starting to be thin on the ground. So he was better off with truck stops. Tourists and travellers were less savvy than the locals. 

Then he spotted her. Travelling alone, travel worn, weary, she didn’t even look at him as she went in to get a packet of cigarettes and some candy. Spike resituated himself between her and her car and watched her through the glass window of the shop as she made her purchases. When she came back out he ducked behind another car, and she was just lighting up when he made his move. 

“Hello, love,” he said as she came around the vehicle. 

She was startled, and he salivated as the fear trickled through her scent. “Hi.” She dropped her cigarette. 

“Nice night for it,” he said, taking a step closer. 

“Uh, yeah,” she said. She started taking out her keys. Spike noticed the defense stance, the keys-through-the-finger position, to make a sharp, eye-gouging claw. 

“No, no, no,” Spike said, and made a move forward. He grabbed her arm at the wrist, jamming his thumb onto the release point, forcing her fingers to open up. 

“Hel--” She started to yell, but Spike put his other hand over her mouth. She kept screaming against his cold flesh, but the sound was muffled now, and Spike dragged her across the shadowed parking lot to the handful of shrubs by his car. She kicked and scratched and tried to bite him, but he was far stronger than her, and her struggles just made him happy. 

He dragged her into the shrubs and went down to his knees, forcing her down onto the ground. “Shut up, and I won’t kill you. How’s that sound?” He loosed his hand from off her mouth. 

“Help me! Ah!” Her cry was cut off by Spike’s buffet on her cheek. It wasn’t very hard. He really had to tone his violence down to be sure he wasn’t close to killing her. This was the worst part of this spell. He’d thought it would be all right to hurt and feed off humans, but he hadn’t remembered how fragile humans were. If he knew it could kill them, he couldn’t seem to do it. He could bite, but not at an artery. He could hit, but not hard enough to concuss. He could probably break a bone, but he hadn’t tried yet, since trying to get past the geas made him feel, for lack of a better term, queasy. It unsettled him in the pit of his stomach wanting to do something, and just not being able to. 

So he was glad to just be able to open his mouth and bite hard at the girl’s throat. _That_ he could do. She whimpered and kicked, struggling against him, and he licked the blood off her skin. “Stop it,” he said low into her ear, “or I’ll bite something else.” 

She was trembling against him now, a victim, a hunted thing, and Spike closed his eyes, let himself feel her strain against him. God, how he’d needed this tonight. Between Drusilla and Angel and Buffy, god, Buffy, he needed to close his teeth in something hot and sweet and vulnerable. The bite was just for him. 

Now he needed to decide if he was going to bring something back for Dru. Ideally he’d find a family, drain a couple of them, and bring back a child or a teenager for Drusilla to eat, but he couldn’t do that if he wasn’t killing, and his slayer roommate would probably disagree with his dinner plans. He’d managed to bring Dru a few pints of blood in soda cups and jars, but it was a bear hunting that way. He had to take the victim, restrain them, cut them enough to bleed, but not let them bleed enough to die. The geas ate at him until he let them stop the bleeding, and it was not a satisfactory experience for him or Drusilla. Or the victim, if he thought about it. Killing them was honest. Attacking them like this and letting them go off into the world full of fear and self-blame? Well, that had always been more Angelus’s thing than Spike’s. 

He really wished he could kill this bint and take his time and feed slow. But the geas made him remember that shock was a thing, and he couldn’t play with his victims long on it. Less than a year, he kept telling himself. He and Dru would be out from under this thing in less than a year. And soon Drusilla would be well enough to do her own hunting. That thought alone made this worth it. 

He was lapping at the wound on the victim, who was crying around his hand now, when he heard the motorcycle pull up. He ignored it at first, assuming it was just someone getting gas, but it pulled up immediately by his DeSoto, and sure enough a blast of Buffy’s scent came toward him as she pulled off her helmet. “Spike,” she snapped. 

He was kind of hidden by the shrubbery. Maybe she didn’t know he was there? 

“Spike!” She marched around the car and into the shrubs, and Spike growled low in his throat. His victim whimpered into his hand. 

“Let her go.” The slayer glared down at him in the dim light, and Spike tried to think of something clever he could say about why a lone woman was lying in the mulch as he licked at a bite wound on her neck, but even he had to admit that no lie would carry this particular situation. He let the woman go, and she flopped away from him to fall at Buffy’s feet.

“Help,” she whimpered. 

“You’re all right,” Buffy told her. She took her arm and lifted her to her feet. “I’ve got you.” 

“Hey, I was just doing what comes naturally, all right?” Spike said, getting up off his knees. “And look at her, she’s fine. I wasn’t killing.”

“You weren’t _killing?_ ” Buffy snapped. “Look at her!”

“He kills?” asked the victim. 

“Not if I can help it,” Buffy said. She came forward and made a grab at Spike. 

He wasn’t that stupid. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist!” he said as he dodged. “I was just looking for a bit of a nosh. You’re the one knew I could still hunt. Mr. Librarian seemed to think I was castrated.” 

Buffy made another snatch for him, and he dodged out of the way again, out into the parking lot. “I didn’t cast that spell just for you to assault random women in the middle of the night!” 

“Don’t make it sound pervy, I’m just hungry, is all,” Spike said. 

“No you are _not!_ ” Buffy snapped, backing him further into the parking lot. “You’re just bored! You have all the blood you want at home, and there’s nothing you need out here!”

“That’s bullshit, that is,” Spike said. “I’m a vampire! I need to hunt and kill and feed!”

“You _need_ a stake through the goddamned heart!” she yelled, and punched him in the face. Spike growled and hit her back. Then she backhanded him, he kicked at her, and within another two moves they both knew they were holding back. Or the geas was holding them back. There was nothing like the passion they’d had for their first fight, when fangs and sharp wood had been a thin line of death between them. Spike stopped. It was just _sad_. 

Buffy did not. She hauled off and hit him hard between the eyes. Spike wasn’t expecting it. He fell backwards and blinked up at the starry sky. 

A second later he felt Buffy grab him from behind and pull him closer to the shrubbery. He struggled, but she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back again. He couldn’t move without breaking his own elbow. “Hey, come here,” Buffy said to the victim. “What’s your name?” 

“Uh, Christine,” the victim said. 

“You ever been attacked like that before?” 

“No. I was just driving down from Oregon, I didn’t think…. Was he going to kill me?” 

“It wouldn’t have bothered him,” she said. “What do you think of what he did to you?” 

Christine didn’t answer. 

“Look, this is your one chance. He’s a vampire. We can’t arrest him for assault. What do you think about what he did?” 

Spike stared at his victim, the idea that they could have feelings about what he’d done completely foreign to him. Yeah, of course they probably did, but the thought hadn’t occurred to him much before. The girl looked hard at him, and then burst into tears. 

“Okay, good. Hit him,” Buffy said. 

“What?” 

“I’ve got him immobilized, he can’t hurt you,” Buffy said. “Hit him.” 

“I…” 

“Hit him in the stomach, that’s what hungered for you, after all,” she said. “Or black his eye, he’s vain.” 

“I am not!” 

“Having Dru do your guyliner and rebleaching your hair every other week? Yeah, you’re vain.” 

“Shut up!” 

“You shut up and take your beating! So go on,” Buffy said. “Get your own back. Trust me, he’s earned it a hundred times over. How did he make you feel? Scared, vulnerable, hurt? Make him feel it. Go on. He gets to be the victim now.” 

“Let me go!” Spike snapped. Buffy twisted his arm again, and he groaned. “Ow!” 

“Look, I’m gonna beat him up, anyway,” Buffy said. “At least this way you’ll have something cool to tell your therapist about. Do it. Trust me, it feels pretty good.” 

Christine looked hesitant, but then reached out and slapped Spike. Spike couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he looked at her. “That’s really all you have, sweetheart?” 

“Don’t call me sweetheart!” Christine snapped, and hit him again. “Ow,” she said. “That hurt my hand.” 

“Kick him,” Buffy said. “You got good boots.” 

She did. Big, clod-hopping hiking boots, and she stepped back and kicked him in the stomach. The wrench on his arm hurt more than the blow did, but mostly what annoyed him was the slayer making him feel trapped. He struggled, and Buffy twisted his neck. “Stop fighting and take your beating!” 

Christine let loose with another kick, and that one hit a rib, and it did hurt, and Spike tried to pull his arm free, but Buffy was stronger than he was, and, he realized, under less duress from the geas. A slayer still had human vulnerabilities under their strength, so he couldn’t break her back, or puncture her lungs, or crack her skull, so he was hobbled when it came to her. But it was hard to kill a vampire. She could basically see him beaten down to half a spine, and so long as he wasn’t dust she knew he’d survive it. 

Spike’s head sagged and he let his fangs retract. He groaned suddenly as the other bitch got her knee up in the wedding tackle. This was going to hurt. But he’d been through this before. Angelus and Darla used to like to hold him down and beat him. He just had to endure and survive.

***

Buffy didn’t know how much was too much. Her job had never been to _punish_ vampires, but to kill them. She decided to leave it to the victim, which was as close as she could see to justice in her own point of view. And see him beat she did. She let Christine whale on him for a good fifteen minutes, until the victim was panting, Buffy was struggling to hold Spike upright, and he was groaning with pain. His nose had crunched under those hiking boots, and his stomach must have been one big bruise. He was heavy once he’d let himself drop, and she was carrying his dead weight against her body, but she couldn’t let up, because he’d no doubt escape then, and she really didn’t want the victim -- or any victim -- hurt anymore. 

When Christine no longer seemed to have much strength, Buffy threw Spike onto his face and stepped on his back. He didn’t struggle beneath her. “Now. Get back in your car and drive as far the fuck away from Sunnydale as you can get. And if you feel like coming this way again, give this place a wide berth.”

“He’s not going to come seek revenge or anything?” 

“No,” Buffy said. “You can just go.” 

“Thank you,” Christine said, and left Spike with Buffy. 

It wasn’t until she’d driven off that Buffy finally let up on his back. Spike grunted himself into a sitting position and glared at her. “You didn’t have to let the little bitch at me,” he said. 

Buffy glared down at him. He looked pretty pathetic, all beaten up, but it was nothing compared to what she would have done to him if she’d decided to go at him herself. “There was no other way she was ever going to get justice.” 

“Justice! You think that was justice?” Spike fought to get to his feet. “That was two nasty bitches hitting on a defenseless victim!” 

Buffy hit him in the eye, since his nose looked a little tender. “You are not the victim here,” she said as he groaned and went to the ground again. “How many people have you assaulted since we made this truce?” 

“Uh--”

“Don’t bother,” Buffy said. “This one was too many. I should never have let you go off tonight.” 

He dragged himself into a sitting position. “How did you even find me?” 

“Because this is the most original and inventive place to hunt? Please. This place about screams vampire attack.” 

“You’ve never stopped me before.” 

“Well, I should have!” Buffy snapped. Guilt tickled at her. “I should have.” 

The truth was, she hadn’t really been looking for him at all. She’d expanded out her patrol route from the others because their endurance wasn’t as strong as hers. Angel hadn’t been helping these last few days, and Buffy didn’t blame him. He was preparing for a dangerous procedure which Buffy had been very clear might kill him. So what if all he wanted to do was finish novels and watch hockey? At least he wasn’t trying to seduce her anymore. But that meant that Giles and the boys were her patrol companions, and she really felt uncomfortable with them in danger, so she tended to send them home once they’d done a quick sweep of the main drag, where the stragglers would pop up. Once they got any potential victim home, Buffy liked to just take up on her motorcycle and check the town perimeter. Seeing Spike’s DeSoto in this parking lot had been like an icy hand on her back. _You’ve been neglecting them,_ she realized.

It wasn’t even a surprise. She’d been sure Spike was still hunting ever since the night with the crows. A Big Gulp of Mountain Dew indeed. He was bringing human blood back for Drusilla. And that probably meant multiple assaults, dozens of traumatized victims. Spike might not be killing, but what the hell had she unleashed? 

Spike wiped blood off his upper lip and rubbed at his stomach. “What happens now?” he asked. 

“I should stake you,” Buffy said darkly. 

“You can’t.” 

“You can’t _do_ this, you can’t keep hunting innocent victims in the dark of the night!” 

“Vampire,” Spike snapped. “It’s what I do!” 

“It doesn’t have to be!” 

Spike dragged himself to his feet to glare at her out of his blue eyes. “You try it,” he said. “I dare you, I just dare you, you try to stay home for a week, never get your slay in, never get the run and the fight, you just try and not kill!” 

“I’m the slayer, I have to end the scourge of the--”

“Bollocks! You like to hunt, same as I do!” 

“So what if I do? I’m hunting the evil. You’re just part of it.” Buffy grabbed him and threw him up against the side of the car. “I should never have agreed to this stupid truce!” 

“You think I’m not wholly in agreement with you now, slayer?” Spike muttered from under her arm. “You need me.” 

“I need Drusilla.” 

“That means you need me.” 

Buffy let him up and turned him around, glaring. She didn’t know what to do with him. She couldn’t leave him to keep doing this shit. She searched his face. He was dark and resentful, and not at all chagrined to have been caught out hunting. “Get in the damned car,” she said, shoving him in. “Keys.” 

“I don’t--”

“Keys!” 

Spike reluctantly fished the keys out of his coat pocket. Buffy opened up the trunk and shoved her Kawasaki into it. It didn’t fit neatly or anything, but she tied it in with the leftover tree twine which had gotten tossed in there. When she got back to the front seat, Spike was nursing a whiskey which he’d dug up from the rubble on the floor. Buffy started the DeSoto and backed it up, running into a garbage can at the side of the parking lot. 

“Hey, watch the goods!” Spike said, staring back at the fallen can. 

“Shut up, this car is like driving a boat,” Buffy said. 

“I thought you were the one with the great spatial skills and the wonderful agility.” 

“I am,” Buffy said. “For myself. Bring a car into the mix, and I keep expecting it to be able to do what my own muscles can. Sense things around it, dodge out of the way. It’s not my fault cars don’t have their own spidey sense. Why do you think I prefer a bike?” 

“Just don’t ding the finish!” 

“Oh, and you’re so worried about a fucking car,” Buffy said, “but leaving extensive neck scarring on innocent bystanders is a-okay.”

“Well, yeah.” 

Buffy reached out and punched him in the chest as she drove. He grunted, but only reapplied himself to his liquor. 

“I never did get that about vampires,” Buffy said as she drove back into Sunnydale. “They’re human, or they used to be. They can be so smart. But bring it down a certain level and they suddenly just don’t _get_ it anymore.”

“Get what?” 

“That you’re not allowed to eat people!” 

“But we are,” Spike said. “That’s the whole point of getting turned. We’re not human anymore, we’re free. We can do anything. Kill people, eat people, fuck people, dance naked in the moonlight on the beach. There’s nothing to stop us, not rules, not strength, not anything. We have all the power, and we can take anything we can get our hands on.” He paused. “I guess being made a slayer isn’t like that?”

“No,” Buffy said. “Suddenly you find yourself stronger, yeah, but then it’s all prophetic dreams and a sense of responsibility.” She looked over at him. “I’m responsible for you. Everything you do is on me.” 

“That’s bollocks,” Spike said, echoing the sentiment her mother had made before. “Just because I’m a bad dog doesn’t mean you are.” 

She felt sick. The idea didn’t meld with how she thought of herself. “I can’t let you hunt anymore.” 

“And how are you going to stop me?” Spike asked, sounding more curious than belligerent. 

“Appeal to your better nature?” Buffy suggested, glancing at him. He raised an eyebrow. Yeah, they both knew how that would turn out. “Well, that leaves me with two options. Chains or a chaperone.” 

“Let me know what you decide.” 

“Probably both,” Buffy snapped. She sighed and focused her eyes on the road as another car passed them. “Why couldn’t you just stick with the damned spell and behave yourself for a few days?” 

“Because it turned into weeks,” Spike said. “And the weeks are going to turn into a month at the rate this is going. Another week and a half until Dru’s all better?” 

“And then what do I do about Dru?” Buffy asked. “Once she’s well enough, can I really believe you’ll both just decide _not_ to go hunting together?” She shook her head. She was going to have to stop them somehow.

“This truce doesn’t look very long lived, does it?” Spike said. “Look, get Dru better, we’ll tell you where Willow’s hiding out, and then Dru and I will get the hell out of town. You’ll never have to see us again, I bloody well hope.” 

“Can I tell you to stop hunting between now and then?” Buffy asked. “Can I just ask you?” 

“What makes you think I’ll keep my word?” 

“You’re the one who said you hadn’t lied to me yet. Well, except about that Mountain Dew thing,” she said. 

“I can’t believe you’d trust me.” 

Buffy stared into the dark. “I’ve known suckers before. They all have their own reasons for deciding not to kill. Sometimes that reason is me. Other times, it’s them.” She glanced at him. “Wouldn’t you do it for Dru?” 

“I already _did_ do it for Dru. I haven’t killed a wretched thing in weeks, I’m starving for it.” 

“You’re supplied plenty of blood.” 

“It’s not the blood!” Spike yelled. 

Buffy heard a desperation to his tone that made her stare before she remembered she was supposed to be driving. “Fuck,” she said as she swerved the car back between the lines. “Come kill with me,” she said, exasperated more than anything else. 

“What?” 

“If what you want is the kill itself, we can do that. Jeeze, you should have said it was the hunt and not the blood. Blood we got you. Killing we can manage. Hell, even Angel still kills. It seems to satisfy him.” 

“And what am I supposed to kill?” 

“Demons,” Buffy said. “Other vampires, mutant nasties. Fuck, bunnies. I don’t care as long as you stop treating the human beings of the area like your own personal salad bar.”

“For fuck’s sake, you make one salad,” Spike muttered, leading Buffy to believe Angel had been bugging him about it behind her back. 

“Look, we’re all going through hell and high water to make it so _Drusilla’s all better,_ ” Buffy said, mocking his accent. “The least you can do is make it so I don’t have to get inventive in trying to stake you.” 

“This geas seems about as watertight as a tuna net,” Spike muttered. 

“And that’s why you agreed to it in the first place.” 

Spike paused. “True.” 

“All right, you want to kill something?” Buffy turned the car down a different road. “You and me, we’re going to kill something.”

“Where you going?” 

“Wherever there might be vampires,” Buffy said. 

***

Buffy threw the vampire into the gravel, scraping his face against the ground, and then kicked him over toward Spike, who picked him up and growled in his face. The bumpy face hissed, and Spike flipped him over to slam dance on his back. Spike gave a war whoop and kept kicking the vampire, while Buffy turned to another one, her stake at the ready. 

This one was savvy, less keen to go for the attack, and he pulled out a knife as Buffy made a feint with her stake. “Spike!” Buffy said, and Spike looked over. “Catch!” Buffy made a move forward, blocked the knife with her stake, and then kicked the vampire over to Spike, who tossed him down on top of the other one. The two beaten vampires squirmed, and Buffy came up to stake one. 

“Got a third,” Spike said over her shoulder, and Buffy rolled. Spike jumped over her to attack, and Buffy lost her grip on the vampire on the ground, who was now thoroughly pissed off. He stood up and reached for Buffy, who backed up and found herself back to back with Spike. The two started for a moment, then shifted, each of them changing partners as if it were a dance, Spike attacking the one who had been on the ground, and Buffy facing the new assailant. 

She jumped forward and staked him quickly, and heard a groan from Spike. “Can’t you play with them a little?” 

“It’s not my job to play with them, it’s my job to stake them! You want to torture other vampires, that’s on you!” 

“Fine, hold this one,” Spike said, throwing it at her, and Buffy found herself doing it while Spike hit him in the face. 

“This totally isn’t fair!” said the vampire between pummelings. 

“Fine,” Buffy said. “Here.” She shoved her stake into his back and whispered as he dusted, “is that better?” 

Dust trickled around her hands in response. 

Buffy looked up at Spike, whose eyes were bright with the exertion, and as Buffy took a step toward him, a roar sounded from the edge of the clearing, and Buffy and Spike turned toward the new assailants and found themselves outnumbered four to one, but that barely mattered, because Buffy had Spike at her back, and they linked hands and ran into the fray, and the taste of dust touched her tongue, and the smell of blood was in the air, and the shouts and yells of the vampires rang like music in her ears, and there was Spike, in the middle of it all, his coat flowing, his fists flying, and he grabbed her hand and threw her into another fight, and she staked the vampire and turned back, and there was Spike again, dancing into another blow, and she held the creature for him, and he staked him, and then there was nothing between them at all. 

The fight hadn’t ended. She could feel it raging on alongside her, the violence and the blood and the dust and the hunger, but there was Spike before her, and she reached out and grabbed him, and suddenly they were kissing, kissing like there was no tomorrow, kissing like the predatory things they were, with teeth and fists and growling, and she had his coat off, and he’d taken hold of her shirt, and they were on the soft ground, mossy and warm, and Buffy rolled him over and his clothes melted beneath her hands, and there was that cut chest and those cording muscles of his neck, and she bent down and kissed it, feeling his hands in her hair, his strength against her, a bulge she could ride on and ride on, and she moaned and opened her eyes, and fuck! 

Buffy was in bed. Her heart was beating hard, and her clit was swollen inside its fold, and she was fortunately all alone, and _fuck!_

She rolled over on her mattress and looked up at the ceiling. It was still dark out. She couldn’t have been asleep for more than a couple of hours. She blamed this sleeping at night thing, she wasn’t used to it. The last time she slept at night was when she’d been travelling around the world with Carter, and they didn’t bother with schedules. That was what was doing it. Sleeping at night, getting to know vampires, and Angel’s asinine insinuation that Buffy wanted a relationship with Spike. That was what had caused this dumb dream. 

In reality taking Spike to hunt vampires with her hadn’t involved panting breaths and melting clothing and bed-soft, moss covered ground. In reality Buffy had taken Spike to a clearing where certain vampires had been known to gather, they’d found half a dozen, and taken them out. True, Spike was slow in his staking while she was fast. He had enjoyed the beat down, even though he himself was still pretty bruised. They’d fought just as well on the same side as they had when they were fighting each other, but Buffy had already known that to be the case, or she wouldn’t have invited him. In reality, they’d killed the vampires, looked at each other awkwardly when they were finished, and then Spike had said something along the lines of, “They weren’t so tough,” and they’d gotten back into the DeSoto and gone home. Buffy had kept his keys so he couldn’t drive off and go hunting again -- hopefully -- but nothing sexy had happened. 

God, she was horny. She reached down under her sweatpants to finish herself off. She tried to think of Christian Slater or something, but she’d started this on Spike, and she found she had to end it there. He had been awfully sexy when she’d seen him naked, and as much as he annoyed her, they also got along. And it was safe, really, because he was taken, every square inch of him, she couldn’t miss it, by Drusilla. Which meant she wouldn’t have to worry about the repercussions if she fantasized about him just for a minute. 

She had to keep silent. Angel was in the room just across the hall, and the last thing she wanted was Angel knowing what she was up to. _Spike, you fucker_ , she thought to herself as she rubbed it out. _Oh, god, you stupid, gorgeous, fucker._ Damn. Oh, damn. The orgasm built and built and then snapped open inside her, and she relaxed, glad to have gotten that out of the way. She tended to think of her own sexuality as a nuisance, something she had no need of, so had no business having. It just got in the way. Whenever she got horny, she did something to get rid of it, fast. Sometimes that meant herself. Sometimes it meant someone else. But it had never been anyone she’d cared about. 

_Your sexuality is a weapon_ , Carter told her. _You can use it for information, for seduction, for intimidation. Many demons will want your body as much as your blood. Let me show you_. 

She shivered and got up. Winter break still wasn’t over yet, she didn’t have to go to school, but the sun was starting to come up, and she didn’t want to lie in bed anymore where thoughts of fighting and Spike and sex kept whirling. This was Angel’s fault. It had to be Angel’s fault. Spike had done nothing outside of his vampiric nature. It was Angel who had gotten Spike and sex and vampires all mixed up in her head. This was just an errant, crazy sex dream, she’d had them before.

It didn’t fucking mean anything. It couldn’t. 

It couldn’t. 


	13. New Moon

_Sitting here, thinking of you, waiting for that railroad to go home_. Spike listened to the soft range of guitar as Joey Ramone sang into the night. He knew he should be waiting inside -- it was easier to keep an eye on Angel if he was inside -- but it was stuffy in there. What he wanted to do was get Buffy and go hunting. Over the last week or so Buffy had been taking him with her when she went patrolling instead of Angel, who was in full brood mode. It had been the most fun Spike had had in years. She was always up for a brawl with him, and he had someone to watch his back. He would have loved getting a fight in tonight, but he didn’t want to risk going out now. Angel might change his mind. He had to stay near Angel and make sure the bloke didn’t take it into his head to scarper. 

He had his new CD player on the porch, but it wasn’t turned up very loud. The door opened, and Buffy came out. He expected her to yell at him for the music, but she only looked at him. “Just checking.”

“Where’d you think I was off to? You still have my keys.” 

Buffy was quiet for a moment. Then, “Tomorrow, then,” she said. 

“Yeah. Tomorrow.” He lit a cigarette and looked pensively into the middle distance. Spike didn’t have the energy he’d used to have whenever someone reminded him that Drusilla would be made well. The nervousness of Giles, Buffy, and Angel had rubbed off on him. And he couldn’t get Dru to peer ahead to tell him how the spell went, so he was just as much in the dark as they were. Would she be cured? Would she die? What would she be like after? Would Angel taint her somehow? Questions whirred in his head, and Buffy cut through them. 

“She’ll be fine, Spike.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m not _worried_ or anything. Just a spell, innit? I know it’ll work.”

“It’s all very clear in the text. The donee will be cured.” 

“I know.” He didn’t say anything else. 

“Well, good night,” she finally said, and let him stand alone on the porch. 

She went back inside. Angel was looking over some papers on the kitchen counter. “Buffy, I’m glad you’re up.”

“It’s still early,” Buffy said. 

“I had some things for you. I wanted to give you these.” He handed over a sheaf of mismatched papers. 

“What are these?” 

“It’s a little faked and I don’t know how well it would stand in court if anyone challenged you on it. But there shouldn’t be a challenge. This is all my worldly property. I want to give it to you.” 

Buffy balked. “Angel, I-- I can’t take this.”

“If I die--”

“Giles says that’s not inevitable.” 

“But you don’t care if it is,” Angel said. 

Buffy schooled her face still and didn’t say anything. 

“If I don’t make it, Buffy, this is a Last Will and Testament. I’m leaving everything to you. There’s some property, a few accounts, a safe in my old apartment. It’s nothing big, but it should be put to use if I…” 

“Okay,” Buffy said. “I’ll file it with Giles.” 

She could tell this was not how he’d wanted her to behave at this. But he nodded, resigned, and headed back upstairs. She slipped to the phone and dialed Giles’s number. 

He picked up. “Hello?”

“Everything still on schedule?” Buffy asked. “I have two of the moodiest, broodiest vampires lurking around. Please tell me we can cut through this all tomorrow night?” 

“Everything is still on schedule here,” Giles said. “By the time the new moon rises I’ll have the testing equipment and the rescue kit set up.”

“I don’t get this. The new moon doesn’t _rise_ , that’s the whole point. It’s dark.”

“The earth still turns, the moon still rises, it’s just we can’t see it. But I have the time of moonrise in my almanac.” 

“Fine, whatever.” Buffy hesitated and then added, “Angel just endowed me with all his worldly goods.” 

“Pardon?” 

“He made up a Last Will. And he gave it all to me, of course. Does he want me to feel guilty?” 

Giles sighed and took off his glasses, though he couldn’t free his other hand from the phone to clean them. “I suspect he wants you to feel invested. I am sorry about his fixation on you.” 

“It’s okay, I can manage him,” Buffy said. “But it would be easier if this was already done.” 

“I just have a few more items to get,” Giles said. “I promise we’ll get this solved by tomorrow night, one way or the other.” 

“Do you think he’s going to die? For real?” Buffy asked. 

Giles didn’t answer, and Buffy didn’t press him. 

“Good night,” she said over the phone, and he heard her click off. 

“Good night, sweet prince,” Giles muttered to himself, and turned back to his medical texts. Magic and demonic research he was used to, but he knew there would need to be something special to get through tomorrow night. 

When morning came he dressed smartly and headed out to his appointment at the hospital. There was quite a black market in blood sales going through there, and Giles had used their services before. Angel had given him this contact some months prior, and he’d always proved reliable. Giles waited in a back hallway for his contact to be ready for him. 

There wasn’t much light back here, and it was eerie, but given that he was dealing in black market human blood, Giles figured that was par for the course. A small man in scrubs came through a door marked Employees Only. “Ah, Mr. Giles,” said Antonio. “Have you been waiting long?” 

“About ten minutes,” Giles said. “Do you have the items I requested?” 

Antonio was pulling a cart behind him with a sheet over it. He uncovered it now. “Everything you asked for. Oxygen sensor, dynamometer, IV pump, blood pressure cuff, and five pints of O negative. This is going to cost you.” 

“I have your funds,” Giles said, handing Antonio a thick envelope. “And I don’t need to tell you, discretion, please.” 

“Like I tell anyone what I make out the back?” Antonio asked. “Nice doing business with you.” 

Giles left, carrying his swag, and Antonio swiftly counted the money before heading to the wall phone. He dialed looking over his shoulder, afraid Giles would suddenly come back. But no, the librarian was definitely gone. “Yeah,” Antonio said into the receiver. “He came. He picked it up. Paid me good for it, too. Am I free now?” 

“That’s very good news,” said Xander over the phone. “I’ll tell our intrepid leader.” 

“But this means we’re square now, right? I can get back to business as usual?” 

“Willow will be pleased,” Xander told him. “We won’t come shutting you down yet.” 

“But the Master never interfered. He said my sideline was a symbol of the coming dawn of the vampires, and thought--”

“Willow is pleased enough for now,” Xander intoned. “Don’t push your luck, human.” He hung up.

He turned to Willow. “We did it, baby. Giles picked up the blood.” He came over to Willow, who was supported by pillows and cuddled under heaping blankets. Xander kneeled down beside the couch where she sat and nursed on a half dead kitten. 

Willow closed her eyes in satisfaction. “That will be one of them down.” 

“But you don’t know what Giles wants the blood for,” Xander said. 

“It’s got to be for Angel,” Willow said. “We have to take out the slayer’s support structure. If we can’t find her, we take out everyone who helps her. Angel first.” 

Xander ran his hand down her hair, caressing her gently. “Are you sure you don’t just want to take him out direct? I mean poison -- it’s not really our style.” 

“I’m not up to strength yet, and I can’t let anyone know that,” Willow said. “This way I can do something while still recovering.” 

“This magic training you did with Rack. Was it worth it?” Xander asked. “It’s been weeks. You still look wrecked.” 

“Oh,” Willow said, and smiled wickedly. She took out a finger and zapped the lightbulb out of the sconce on the wall with a single thread of blue lightning. “Yeah,” she said before snuggling back down under her blankets. “It was absolutely worth it.” 

***

Spike cradled Drusilla in his arms as they all filed into the abandoned church. Buffy had readied all the doors earlier that day. Larry and Oz kept watch by the exits while she came in with the vampires. Angel walked tall, with his head high and his face stoic. When he looked at anyone, he looked at Buffy. He kept using that little-boy-lost look he had, which gave Spike the giggles when he usually saw it, but right now he was too focused on Dru to give much attention to Angel’s absurd martyr complex. 

Giles was already there, dressed with a smock over his suit, and his hair covered with a cloth cap. It looked as if he was trying to emulate a surgeon. “All right, I have almost everything arranged,” he said, checking his watch. “If we could just get Angel and Drusilla up here to the dais, and we’ll prep them for the ritual.” 

Giles had placed two chairs facing each other under a single dangling chain. Spike carried Drusilla up and placed her lovingly on her chair. He snuggled against her throat and kissed her warmly. “Soon, my darling. It’s been….”

“Forever,” Drusilla said softly, and hugged him back. “My poor, dear Spike.” Her nail slid down his neck, and then jabbed deeply. Spike leaned away from her in time to see her suck the blood off her finger with a coquettish smirk. 

He grinned at her. This was why he was willing to go through everything. For that smile, that playful pain, his own dark goddess. She was worth the world. 

“If you don’t mind, I have a few monitors to hook up,” Giles said. 

Spike forced himself to stand, but stayed behind Dru, his hands on her shoulders, as Giles hooked an oxygen monitor to her finger -- it immediately began to blare a warning, and Giles turned the sound down. “Vampires do have an oxygen level,” Giles said. “It’s simply much lower than in humans, and can go down to zero without killing them. But it would be good to know how everything is progressing. Drusilla, can you squeeze this?” He handed her a box with a grip handle on it. “Now grip that as hard as you can?” Giles asked. He made a note down on a clipboard he was carrying. “Dynamometer reading,” he muttered. He took her blood pressure, made notes of that. Spike thought it was all silly, but whatever made Giles comfortable. Finally he pulled out a hair net and told Spike to put it on Drusilla. Then he turned. “Angel, I think we’re ready for you here.” 

Angel was talking in low tones to Buffy, whose face was closed and tight. “You’ll be fine,” she told him as he walked up to Giles. 

Spike braided Drusilla’s hair out of the way and then tucked it securely under the hair net. Giles was supplying one for Angel, as well. He did all the same tests on Angel as he had done on Dru, marked it all down on his little clipboard, and then told Spike he had to stand back. Spike went over to Buffy, who was standing near the pews, near some of the equipment Giles had laid out. Giles then proceeded to wash Drusilla’s and Angel’s hands, as well as his own, with a thermos of hot water and an antiseptic solution.

“Why is he doing all this bollocks?” Spike asked. 

“He’s trying to get as much data as possible so he knows how soon he can end the ritual,” Buffy said. “He doesn’t want to kill Angel.” 

Spike absorbed this. It was the first time any of them had outright said to him that Angel’s life was in danger in this ritual, but it didn’t surprise him. He was no fool, and what they had told him of the ritual hadn’t seemed overly beneficial to the donor. “Don’t see why not,” Spike said. “Bugger deserves it.” 

“He’s not that bad,” Buffy said. “I mean, he tries, you know?” 

“I thought you didn’t like him.” 

“I don’t want to _be_ with him,” Buffy said. “Doesn’t mean he’s….” She trailed off.

“Evil?” Spike said. 

“Yeah, that.” She sighed. “I mean, he’s creepy, but he is risking everything just because we asked. For your girlfriend.” She shrugged. “He’s trying to be noble.”

“That’s not his reasoning.”

“I don’t know his reasoning. He says it’s me, but it can’t be me, he doesn’t even know me. So… maybe he really does want to be a hero.” 

“I’m sure he does want it. Doesn’t meant he can have it.” Spike hesitated before saying, “You know why Dru is the way she is?” 

“A seer?” 

“Crazy,” Spike said. When Buffy looked at him, he shrugged. “You know she is.” 

“I thought it was her visions drove her a little batty.” 

Spike shook his head. “No. Angel did that to her. He saw she had visions and he thought, how pretty it would be if she saw all the horrible things I’m going to do to her before I do them. So he did that. Killed her family, stalked her, tortured her. Harried her for years. She ran from him, but that didn’t help. He stalked her to a convent, and the day she signed on to become a novitiate, he turned her into a vampire. Made quite sure he’d shattered her mind before he turned her.” He looked back up at the dais. “She still dreams about it. The vampire in her wants to be enthralled, the human remains of her are horrified. There was no clear change for her, it took so long.”

Buffy stared at him. “You mean he did that, and then… kept her? As a vampire? Why?”

“Wanted to see his victim every day.”

“But she….” Buffy stopped and looked away. 

“She what?” 

“She loves him,” Buffy said. “I mean, I’m sure it’s just as a father or a sire or something.” Spike said nothing. “But how could she love him if he tortured her like that?”

“That’s how love works for us,” Spike said. “She loves him so much, she’d love to torture him back. He loved her so much, he wanted to eat her.” He turned back to the dais, where Giles was now tying Drusilla’s and Angel’s hands to the sterilized chain he’d hung from the ceiling. “And then he cared so little for her, she needed to make me,” he mused. 

“Did she torture you, too?” Buffy asked. 

“Not before I was turned,” Spike said. “Besides. A few whips and chains are just part of the fun.”

Buffy looked up at Angel. “He really is a bastard,” she muttered.

“Now you’re catching on,” Spike said. 

“Do you think that’s what he wanted with me?” Buffy asked. “When he stalked me and waited for me here in Sunnydale? To torture me?”

“Yes,” Spike said. Then he shrugged. “Well, I doubt he thinks of it like that. When he got obsessed with a girl he’d do the whole charm-them-and-court-them routine for a while, get them to depend entirely on him for any kind of emotional fulfillment, and then snap the box behind them on their old life. Then he’d start torturing them with creepy notes, dead puppies, murdered friends and family. It depended on how fast he wanted it to play out. But most of the time, he’d find a teenage girl, play nice with her, and then turn nasty. My guess is he wanted to play nice with you.” 

“And 'playing nice' is the charming and seducing and making-me-dependent part of the way he hunted?”

“Mm. He probably wasn’t thinking about snapping the box closed with that soul, but it’s still all the same hunting pattern. He actually hasn’t changed that much.” 

“And if he’d succeeded in seducing me?” 

“I don’t know. He probably doesn’t either. But one thing I do know. Whether he says he wants to or not, whether he planned on doing it or not, that vampire still wants your blood.” 

Buffy’s face was hard. “I know he does,” she said. 

Spike’s eyes flickered down Buffy’s athletic form. “Can’t blame him.” 

Buffy shot him a look that would have dusted him if it had been wood. All in all, it was probably a good thing that Giles interrupted them. “Spike, if you would be so good as to light the incense censer?” he asked, now that he’d taken all his readings and laid out all the rest of the equipment. 

“I’m on,” Spike said. He lit the censer and passed it to Giles. 

Giles closed his eyes for a moment and began to recite, “Eligor, I name thee. Bringer of war, poisoners, pariahs, grand obscenity. Eligor, wretched master of decay, bring your black medicine.”

“Charming ritual,” Buffy muttered to Spike. 

“Shh! Don’t muck it up.” 

“Come,” Giles said, picking up the sterilized DuLac cross. “Restore your most impious, murderous child.” The distaste for the words was clear in Giles’s accent. 

“DuLac had issues,” Buffy muttered again. “Couldn’t he have just written down _insert name_ instead of _murderous child?_ ” 

“Shut it!” Spike hissed. 

“From the blood of the sire, she is risen,” Giles said distinctly, and unsheathed the blade from the cross. “From the blood of the sire, she shall rise again.” He measured the positions of Angel and Drusilla’s hands, and then deftly inserted the blade. 

“Whoa,” Buffy said, as a magical flash shone from their joined hands, and half blinded her with pink light. “That looks like it worked.” 

“So far,” Giles said, quickly turning back to his equipment. “Angel, are you still with us?” 

“Yes,” Angel said, but he sounded in pain. 

“Good, good. I want you to try and remain awake. I’m going to ask you a series of questions, to ascertain you’re still with us. First off, I want you to tell me how you’re feeling. Any spots before your eyes? Ringing in your ears?” 

“Uh… yeah. A little ringing, I guess.” 

“Do you feel weak? You let me know if you feel you’re about to pass out.”

“Right. No. I mean… I don’t know.” His breathing was becoming labored. Drusilla hummed and groaned in her chair, arching her back as power flowed into her. 

“Drusilla?” Giles asked, turning his attention to her. “Are you feeling all right?” 

“The sunlight shines… the moonlight pales.” 

Giles glanced at Spike. Spike shrugged helplessly. He couldn’t interpret everything she said. 

“Let us assume this means all is going well for her. Angel. Angel?” 

Angel made as sound as he opened his eyes. “Buffy.” 

“No, this is Giles. Do you want to see Buffy?” 

“I don’t know what to do,” Buffy said quickly. 

“Angel, are you with us?” 

Angel sniffed once and his eyes focused more on Giles. “Y-yes,” he said. 

“Good. I want to be sure your mind can still focus. What month is it?” 

Angel groaned. 

“Angel? Stay with us here. What month is it?” 

“J-January.” 

“Excellent. What is the year?” 

“I-I don’t…” 

“Do you know what day of the week it is?” 

Angel groaned again. 

“Angel, do you know what we’re doing right now? Are you losing consciousness?” 

Angel didn’t answer, and Giles put his clipboard aside. “This doesn’t look good,” he said to Buffy. “Can you prepare the IV?” 

It was already prepared, but Buffy brought it up to him, and Giles proceeded to check Angel’s vitals, such as they were. Drusilla, for her part, looked orgasmic. To Spike’s discomfort she had slumped forward onto Angel’s chest and occasionally moaned softly. Her fingers twisted into Angel’s where they were pinned together on the chain. Spike itched to jump up there and separate them, but he knew this was what was going to save her. It would save _them_. 

Spike’s leg was twitching as he stood watching. Giles was buzzing over Angel, checking everything as he seemed to lose consciousness. “Check Dru!” Spike called out.

Giles started and looked at him. “What?”

“Is Dru all right?” Spike asked. 

Giles looked harried. “Yes, I believe so. Let me concentrate,” Giles said as he worked on Angel’s arm. 

Suddenly the monitor that had been turned down turned itself back up with a different beep. Giles glanced at it. “Blast,” he said. “Angel has lost all consciousness, he is no longer taking in air.” 

“Does that mean he’s dead?” Buffy asked. 

“He can come back, but I don’t think we can risk the ritual continuing any longer,” Giles said. He stood up to unpin their hands. 

Spike jumped in. “No,” he said. 

Giles glared. “What do you mean, no?” 

“No. We don’t know if that was enough. We don’t know if she’s cured yet.” 

“Listen, you--” Giles began. 

“I say, let him bleed,” Spike said harshly, and he stood up and held Angel and Dru’s hands together. Giles tried to push him off, but Spike was stronger. He couldn’t shove Giles off as hard as he wanted to, but he made the librarian stagger as he was shoved away. 

“Spike,” Buffy said. “I’m warning you.”

“It’s Drusilla!” Spike said, staring at her, willing her to understand. 

He half expected her to roundhouse kick him across the room and into the abandoned organ, but instead he felt her fingers warm around his as she gently took his hand. “Spike,” she said softly. “It's okay.” Then she abandoned gentle and his fingers cracked. 

“Ow!” 

“Now if you don’t let go this instant I will start tearing them off.” She pulled at a finger. 

Spike let go, growling. “But it’s Dru!” 

“I know,” she said, pushing him away from the two on the chain. “She’s okay, okay? Giles, you can get back to it now.” 

Giles jumped forward and disconnected the blade from Angel and Drusilla. Their hands dropped, and Dru nearly fell. Spike tried to push past Buffy again. 

“Spike,” Buffy said, warningly. 

“Dru!” Spike pushed at her. 

“Okay, you can get her, just let Giles work.”

Spike barged past and caught Drusilla just as she fell off the chair. He carried her to the side where he set her on a pew, far from any crosses or the worst trappings of the old church. 

Giles was busy loading Angel up with an IV. Spike barely glanced at the proceedings, instead caressing Dru’s hair out of its hairnet and staring into her face. She was breathing, such as a vampire breathes, and she looked more post-coital than post-energy-spell, but Spike wasn’t great at rituals. She _looked_ okay. 

“All right, let’s see what a few pints of this inside him will do.” Giles glanced at Buffy. “Buffy, can you watch over Angel while I check Drusilla’s vitals?” 

“Yeah, okay,” Buffy said.

Giles came up with the blood pressure cuff and the dynamometer. “Can you hold her steady?” Giles asked, wrapping the blood pressure cuff around Dru’s arm. 

“What do you expect to get from that?” Spike asked. “We’re dead.” 

“You still have a blood pressure, it’s just that it’s constant,” Giles said. “I have to listen for when it releases, it’s only a single pulse… there. I have her baseline from yesterday. It was weak… and seems stronger. Drusilla? Drusilla, are you awake?” 

“The dark moon rises,” Drusilla said quietly. Then she smiled and took in a deep breath. “Daddy’s made me strong again.” 

Spike buried her in a hug, and Giles heaved a sigh. “I think that might have done it for us,” he said. 

“Giles,” Buffy said. “Um, can you… uh… Angel doesn’t look good.” She sounded a little panicked. 

“What happened?” 

“I don’t know. He just started…. Unh!” 

Spike finally looked up from Drusilla to see Angel lying on the ground, flailing and fighting. Buffy tried to hold him down, but he rolled and shoved, fighting to get her and Giles off of him. 

“Buffy, hold him!” 

“I can’t! He won’t stop… moving!” 

“You’re stronger than him, aren’t you?” 

“I didn’t say he was too strong, he just won’t hold still!” 

Angel cried out and shoved Giles off him. The movement made the IV pull from his arm, and blood squirted onto the ground. 

Spike and Drusilla both stiffened at the scent. 

“Damn and blast!” Giles cursed, and caught the tube of the IV. “Help me, Buffy. He needs--”

“He doesn’t need that,” Spike said, and he stood up, leaving Drusilla on the pew. 

“What is it?” Buffy asked. 

“Poison. Can smell it from here,” Spike said. He picked up the IV tube and sniffed at the blood “Phew, that’s nasty.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t know, do I? Just that it’s not just blood in there.”

“Are the others tainted as well?” 

Spike went to the table Giles had laid the blood packets on and lifted one. There was no real way to open it. Spike picked up one of the IV needles and poked a hole. “Woof. This one is,” he said. He checked the others in turn. “Every one,” he said. “I wouldn’t even drink the stuff, it smells foul.”

“Are you telling me we made him worse?” Giles asked.

“All I know is, this isn’t good blood.” 

“What do we do?” 

“Well, get him out of here, for one,” Spike said. “We don’t thrive in churches.” 

“And I was being so careful,” Giles said. 

Buffy tried to carry Angel out, but he wouldn’t stop thrashing. He wasn’t fighting with any coordination, but he wouldn’t calm down, either. Finally she turned to glare at Spike. “Fucking help me with him!” 

Spike growled, but finally came to Angel’s other arm and helped Buffy carry Angel out to the van while Dru followed.

“I’ll clean up here tomorrow. Get us home,” Giles said to Oz as he and Larry joined them. “If someone’s poisoned the blood I acquired, it’s possible they know what we’re up to.” 

“More likely they just knew who it was for,” Buffy said. “Willow knows you worked with Angel, didn’t she?” 

“Yes,” Giles said. “Yes, she did. That means my supplier is compromised.” 

“That Antonio?” Spike asked, knowing Antonio as one of the few black-market human-blood sellers who would cater to Angel. “At the hospital?”

“Yes,” Giles said. He glanced up at Spike and Drusilla, who was hanging off Spike’s arm. Her eyes never left Angel. “Drusilla? How are you feeling?”

“Fine, thank you, doctor,” Drusilla said. 

“Is there anything you need?” 

“Can I have a toddler?” 

Spike kicked her foot. 

“I’m quite well,” she said instead. 

“Well, you do sound more lucid,” Giles asked, though Spike could read the concern in his eyes, and it wasn’t for Dru’s well-being. 

Drusilla reached up and whispered in Spike’s ear. “Can I eat the pretty one?”

“Not yet, love,” Spike murmured. “She counts as human.” 

“Not her, the one with the glasses,” Dru asked. 

Spike looked at Giles. Well, he supposed Giles was pretty enough. “Not yet,” he said again. 

Drusilla whimpered, and Spike put his arm around her as Angel gave another thrash. 

“What are we going to do with him?” Buffy asked. “He’s going to hurt himself.” She was sitting on one arm now, and gripping the other one with slayer strength. 

“We’ll have to restrain him, somehow,” Giles said. 

“Ooh, Spike’s got manacles in his basement,” Buffy said with a wicked grin in Spike’s direction. 

“Hey!” Spike said. 

“It’s only until Angel recovers,” Giles said, and none of Spike’s protests fell on receptive ears, such that by the time they got back to Revello Drive, Spike was resigned to helping Buffy carry Angel down to his own basement room, where they proceeded to chain Angel up to Drusilla’s four poster bed. 

Spike turned to Drusilla to apologize, but she had turned to her raven. They had never found a cage big enough for it, so Spike had made one out of wood and chicken wire. It was floor length and closet sized. Dru wouldn’t have bothered, and was happy with the raven flying everywhere, but Buffy had insisted they have some way to lock the thing up, or she wouldn’t let it stay. “They’ve chained up my daddy, pretty bird,” she told him. 

“It’s only for a bit,” Spike told her. 

“Do you think they’ll let me play with him?” Drusilla asked, of the bird or Spike, he couldn’t be sure. 

“I wouldn’t bet on it. How are you feeling?” 

Drusilla turned to him with her childlike grin, and took in a deep, cleansing breath. “I’m hungry, Spike. Take me for a feast.” 

Spike felt bad. He would love to take Drusilla out to a dance hall, claim for her a beautiful girl, break her back and gift her as an offering to his beloved, but the geas got in the way of it, and Angel was groaning on their bed. “I can get you some blood, love. There’s lamb in the fridge.”

“I want an orphan.” 

Spike’s head sank. 

“Spike, you keep her in line,” Buffy said from the side of the bed, where she was still wrestling with Angel’s chains. He kept moving so much it was hard to pin him down. “I didn’t make her better just so she could slaughter the town.” 

“Keep your shirt on! She’ll get it,” Spike said. 

“You haven’t.” 

“Oi!” Spike took Drusilla’s arm and led her up the stairs. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” he asked her as he pulled some lambs blood out of the fridge. 

“They’ve chained Daddy up. I want a turn.” 

“They aren’t torturing him, pet. Here, love, let's get this in you.” He stuck a mug of the stuff in the microwave and turned back to her. “Are you really all right?” 

“Would you dance with me?” Dru asked. 

“To the moon and back again,” Spike said, twirling her where she stood. “Take my arm. Are you truly returned to me? Have my dreams been answered?” 

“Dreams aren’t visions, Spike,” Dru said, but she took his arm, and when he squeezed her, she squeezed him back, hard enough to be real. 

“Dru,” Spike whispered, his head falling onto her shoulder. He nearly sobbed, he was so happy. He pushed her up against the fridge and kissed hard at her neck, rubbing his body up against hers, so ready to be properly reunited with her in all the ways they hadn’t been able to be for so long. Then the microwave beeped, and Dru pushed him off her. 

“Hungry,” she said. 

Spike sighed as she left him abandoned, but it was all right. She was better now. She was better, and the geas could be lifted, and he knew precisely what he had to do now. And really, he wanted the time to see to her properly, and Angel was in his bed. He considered going up and claiming Angel’s bed to make love to Drusilla on, but as soon as Dru was done with her blood, she went back down the stairs again. Well, Dru did prefer her own spaces. And really, it didn’t matter. They had all the time in the world.


	14. Blood Ties

Angel lay mad and moaning all that night, and into the next day. Buffy and Giles tried to tend him, but he was violent, and Buffy didn’t want the other humans risking themselves sitting with him. Giles was mostly doing research, which left Buffy the one trying to get Angel to take blood, checking his chains, his wacked out vampiric vitals, and occasionally talking to him when he became lucid enough, which wasn’t often. 

Drusilla and Spike stayed down in the basement with them, which Buffy was glad about. Sitting by Angel’s bedside seemed too intimate, too personal, and it wasn’t something she enjoyed. She was glad to have a chaperone, even if it was someone as immediately annoying as Spike. 

And Drusilla had turned decidedly creepier. 

Buffy couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. Dru had spent a lot of time sitting down, lying in her bed, or even on the floor before. She’d had a tendency to lay looking at the ceiling and whisper about things. Now she was clearly awake, and her sinister looks had begun to have a more predatory feel. It came to a head when Larry came down to check on Buffy, and Dru wouldn’t really let him leave. Every time he headed back toward the stairs Dru would somehow get between him and the stairs, gaze into his eyes, and tell him something creepy. “You have pretty lips on your face,” she told him, and seemed to hold him there with her eyes for a moment until he turned away and looked confused. She’d reach out for him, then sort of pet him, then she’d let him go and he’d turn back to Buffy, ask her if she needed anything, and then head back toward the stairs, and Dru would stop him again. Why was she petting him? Why was he letting her? It must have happened three times before Buffy finally turned to Spike and asked. 

“Does she have a thrall?” 

“Dru? Nah,” Spike said too quickly, and took hold of Larry. “You go on upstairs, mate. Buffy’s all good here.”

“She was trying to eat him, wasn’t she? Only the geas wasn’t letting her.”

“No, of course not. Dru, come on, why don’t we go back upstairs? I’ll bet there’s Sesame Street on the telly, you can watch all the little children.”

“Will their mummies be crying?” 

“Absolutely, love, tears hot and wet. Come on, pet.” He tried to lead her upstairs, but Drusilla wasn’t interested, and turned back to her raven. Spike rolled his eyes and kept trying to read a book in the corner, but Drusilla kept drawing his attention back to her by talking to Buffy, or letting the raven go so it flapped around the room for half an hour; once she said that a shelf infuriated her and smashed it off the wall before Spike was able to distract her. Buffy was unnerved by her behavior, which seemed just as erratic as before, but now more dangerous. 

“Is this what she was like before she got sick?” Buffy asked. 

Spike just looked harried. 

“Well, now that she’s all better, how about that location? Where the fuck is Willow?” 

“In good time,” Spike said. “She needs time to concentrate. It doesn’t come all at once, you know. She needs to draw out cards, consult with her pixies, read the morning paper, draw inferences. It’ll come, it’ll come.” 

“It had better. We played your game. Too much longer and you’ll wear out your welcome. Both of you.” 

Spike’s nostrils flared, but he went back to distracting Dru. He led her to a corner where he started reading aloud to her, too quiet for Buffy to hear clearly, but loud enough to keep her from really concentrating on anything herself. She checked Angel again, who woke to her touch and tried to sit up. “Lie back down,” Buffy told him. “Just try and rest, you’re sick.” 

“No,” Angel murmured, but he resumed his quiet moaning on the bed. 

It was after noon when Giles came down. He had a book in his hand, and his eyes were red beneath his glasses. “Buffy, I have a possible cure for Angel.”

Buffy looked up from her chair. She hadn’t slept, either. “Perfect, what is it?” 

“Well. First of all, the fact that he’s active and mobile is apparently a good sign. It means that his demonic powers are still sufficient enough that he might just heal on his own.” 

“That’s good. You mean we can just leave him?” 

“Well, perhaps,” Giles said. “But if this does continue, there may be another option. I’ve seen several references to vampire poisons, all of them related to blood or bleeding. Unfortunately the cure seems to be the same, always more blood. And all indications are that the most potent blood has the best effect.” 

“Obviously,” Buffy said.

“I read a reference to the blood of a slayer,” he said. He seemed excited by cool medical magic. “That it would cure the most potent poison given to a vampire. That no vampiric toxin could stand against it.” 

Buffy’s eyes closed. “He wants my blood,” she said low. 

“Pardon me?” 

“Find something else, Giles,” Buffy said. “I’m not doing that.” 

“Well, I did say it was a last resort.” 

“I don’t care enough,” Buffy said. “Angel is a murdering vampire. I don’t care if he helped you, I’m not putting my life at risk for him.”

“You might not need to put your life at risk,” Giles said. “Just a pint of your blood might be enough to--”

“I don’t care!” Buffy snapped, loud enough that Spike broke off his reading and looked at them. “I am not putting any part of my body in that monster’s mouth, do you hear me? I am not going to sacrifice my well-being for a creature whose idea of seduction is stalking and manipulation. I’d rather give my blood to Spike than to Angel!”

Spike raised his hand. “I’m game.” 

“Shut up,” Buffy snapped, pointing at him. 

“It wouldn’t put you in danger,” Giles said. “I just thought because after all, Angel sacrificed his well-being for you.” 

“For Drusilla, who he apparently owes a shitload to,” Buffy snapped. “And I am not under any obligation for what _he_ decided to do, whether for me or not.” 

“I realize that,” Giles said. “But I thought, given the circumstances, that you would want to know. You can probably cure him if you wished to, Buffy.” 

“And if he needed some slayer nookie instead? What if that was the cure?” 

“Buffy, that wasn’t what I was asking--”

“Yeah,” Spike said. “Sort of was.” 

Giles turned his gaze on him. “If you’ll pardon me, Spike, I wasn’t speaking to you.”

“Mmm, yeah, blood’s kind of my thing,” Spike said. “You’re basically asking the slayer to bend over for the bloke.”

“But we did ask the same of Angel.” 

“Nope, she’s right, that was for Dru,” Spike said. “Not as if that’s a new relationship, there. And blood is everything. Makes you warm, makes you hard. You can’t expect the slayer to just give it.” He took a step forward. “Now if you wanted me to help you _take it_ from her--”

Buffy did not get scared. “Spike,” she warned. 

“So long as I get a taste,” Spike added with a grin. 

“That’s not what I was suggesting!” Giles looked shaken. “To any of you!” He took off his glasses and cleaned them mechanically. Buffy noticed his hand was shaking. “We may be out of our depth here,” he said. 

“Look, you said he’ll probably get better on his own,” Buffy said. “Let’s just… stay with that for now.” 

“Right,” Giles said. He nodded stiffly. “Fine. I’ll go and… do some more research.” 

“That’s a good idea,” Buffy said. Giles went back up the stairs, and Buffy rounded on Spike. “And don’t threaten me again.” 

“But your blood smells of honeysuckle,” Drusilla asked. “We could suckle. Couldn’t we, Spike?” 

“Shut your creepy girlfriend up, and keep your threats off my blood. I absolutely will see you wrecked if you ever try that again.” 

“Was only teasing,” Spike said, catching Drusilla in a one armed hug. “Gotta admit, it’s a _neat_ idea.” 

Buffy threw up her hands and went upstairs to talk to Giles without any vampires present. Angel looked well enough for the moment, and she was getting sick of sitting beside him, anyway. 

She slipped out the basement door and into the kitchen. Larry and Anyanka were watching TV in the living room, but they seemed sufficiently distracted. Giles was sitting at the dining room table with his head in his hands. Buffy sidled in next to him and sat down. He caught his breath and looked up. “Buffy.” 

“Hey.” 

Giles rubbed at his hands. “I’m sorry,” he told her quietly. 

“It’s all right.”

“No, I should never have put you on the spot like that. In front of them, no less. It was unforgivable.” 

“Spike’s just a jerk,” Buffy said. “I get it. You weren’t thinking about blood and vampires, you were just thinking blood donation. If a human needed it, I wouldn’t have argued. But Angel won’t take it the way a person would. To him it’s going to mean eternity and destiny and that I was meant to save him by those Powers of his. It’s asking for a bond I don’t feel like making.”

“Kind of like asking you to go to bed with him,” Giles said. 

“Yeah.” 

Giles looked hard at Buffy. “Buffy,” he asked. “You said, a while ago, that you’d played a prostitute at times.” 

Buffy wanted to shrug and dismiss it, but Giles looked so earnest. “Yeah. Vampires were hunting the hookers.” 

“How much of this part were you forced to play?” 

Buffy paused. Why was he asking? “Does that matter?” 

“It does,” Giles said, “because you should never have been asked for such a thing. You’re only a girl, not even eighteen yet.” 

“Well, that makes you three months better than my last watcher,” Buffy said. “And I’m not a girl anymore. I’m just the slayer.” 

“That’s not true,” Giles asked. “You are yourself. And your body -- and your blood -- are yours to do with as you please.” 

“I know that,” Buffy said, though she didn’t. Not really. No watcher had ever said such a thing to her. They always gave her the impression that they thought her body, her blood, her very life was theirs to dispose of as they would. 

“I should never have presumed,” Giles said. He gazed at Buffy, then lowered his eyes with a slight shake of his head. “And I am sorry.” 

“You presume a lot,” Buffy said, “but I’ve had worse watchers.” She stood up. “So how long before we’ll know if Angel’s going to get better?” 

“I think it depends on how much blood he ingests,” Giles said. 

“Then I guess that means I’m force feeding him,” Buffy said. She went to the fridge and took up a bag of blood, then dug out a turkey baster from the drawer of weird utensils the landlord had left behind. As she went back down the stairs she added, “This, I’m willing to do.” 

***

Spike watched as Buffy shoved animal blood down Angel’s throat with a turkey baster. It didn’t look like it was particularly fun for either of them. After Giles’s little suggestion Buffy seemed to be performing the force-feeding with an air of punishment. Spike rather enjoyed watching Angel be the one tortured for once, even if it was a rather benign form of torture. 

Finally the sun set, and Buffy said she was going to go patrol. “You guys can manage Angel, can’t you?” she asked them. 

“Oh, no trouble,” Spike said. “Be happy to.” In fact, he had an errand he planned on running that night, but there was no point in discussing that.

Drusilla had crawled into the cage with her raven, and was asleep with its feet gripped in her hand. The raven had settled down after its initial protest, and they looked adorable cuddled up. Perfect time to torment Angel some more. Spike went over to the bed and used the turkey baster to squirt some blood up his nose. 

Angel sputtered and woke, angry. “Buffy!”

“She’s not here,” Spike said. “Not anyone here but me.” 

Angel grunted. “I’m doing better. Unchain me.” 

“Ah, no, I don’t think I will.” 

“The confusion has passed,” Angel said. “I don’t think I’ll lash out anymore.”

Spike looked down at his hand, as if inspecting his nails. “That’s up to the slayer to decide, not me. And she doesn’t seem at all keen on helping you.”

“You’re just being a pain,” Angel said. “She was tending me.” Angel closed his eyes again. “She cares.” 

“Oh, not as much as she could,” Spike said. “You know, according to the librarian, if Buffy just gave you a little nip of her blood, you’d be right as rain. But the slayer wasn’t keen on that idea. Said she’d rather top me off, she did.” 

“I don’t believe you.” 

“‘S true. Or maybe we could just perform the ritual over again, sire to the sire…. Oh, wait. We can’t do that, because you _killed_ your sire.” 

“Don’t do that.” 

“Don’t do what? Remind you that you in all your soulyness dusted the one person in the universe who had ever cared about you? Hm.” Spike grinned down at Angel, who was the one who had taught him to use such nasty details to torture people. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Angel said quietly. 

“You and Darla never knew how to fight fair. I’m not surprised you went too far.”

“Stop it.” 

“But then, you can always find another blonde to seduce into your bed. Not as if Darla mattered to you or anything.” 

“Shut up.”

“Not as if you loved each other.” 

Angel glared. “It was a mistake! She shot me.” 

“Wrong place, wrong time, wrong side. While you were waiting for your slayer-shaped destiny.” 

“Stop.” 

“Your destiny who just left you to my tender ministrations and said she’d rather see you die than give you a taste of her blood.”

Angel closed his eyes again. “I’m done listening to you.” 

Spike grinned down at Angel. “Yeah, you’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m sure the slayer will continue to give you the tender care you richly deserve.” He bent and kissed Angel’s forehead, the way Angel used to do to him when he was still a fledge. Spike had never decided if it was meant as fond or demeaning. He suspected Angel never knew, either. Then Spike slipped his coat on and went for a walk. 

His destination wasn’t far, and he knew where he was going. He kept an ear out for the sound of Oz’s van, because he didn’t want the slayer catching him tonight. A random victim he could let go -- they weren’t important in the long run -- but tonight he had a mission. 

When Spike got to the hospital he snuck in the back way, breaking a door lock to get in. The geas was going to make the game a little harder to play, but he had an idea, if he could just work out how to do it. 

The hospital was of course as awake at night as it was during the day, except for the lobby, which was fairly quiet. Spike went down into the cafeteria, which was closed for the night, and checked to see if they had the equipment he’d need. They did indeed, a gorgeous walk-in freezer, chock full of frozen foods for mass hospital consumption. Spike needed to clear some out to make space, but that wasn’t hard. Then he carefully addressed the door handle on the inside, removing screws, taking pieces out, breaking some others, until he was satisfied with the catch. 

He left the freezer door open, then went to the fire door. Once he was satisfied that that wouldn’t open, Spike went out after his prey. 

Antonio wasn’t hard to find. He was an orderly who knew his way around a lock and a file, and knew how to skim the tools he needed from the hospital stores, including fresh blood. He’d been working with vampires for over a year, providing them with bagged blood and sometimes the occasional baby or other victim when a special order came through. He’d catered to the Master primarily, and Angel and Spike both, even though Angel was against the Master and Spike wasn’t one of his sycophants. Clearly Antonio’s neutral status had been dissolved by Willow. 

It took Spike a while to find him, but eventually he spotted the bloke cleaning the floors in one of the hallways. There were too many nurses and other witnesses around, so Spike slipped into rooms and hid behind corners, with his eye always on Antonio, until the orderly worked his way into a store room, and Spike snuck in behind him. 

Antonio didn’t notice he was there at first. When he turned and saw Spike, black-clad and sinister behind him, he gasped. “Spike! I-I didn’t see you. What are you after? A little A-positive? It’s a bit easier if you call first.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, a little bit of blood,” Spike said. “Someone’s, anyway.” He vamped up and lunged for Antonio’s neck. 

Just a bite, a tear, some bruises, and Antonio was already terrified. The man’s screams had been easy to muffle with his wrist. After he’d calmed down a little, Spike let up on his neck and listened carefully outside the door. No one was in the hall, so he picked Antonio up and carried him down the corridor. “Keep quiet and I won’t kill you,” Spike promised with a little laugh. Antonio nodded, but Spike still kept a hand over his mouth. 

It was a bit of a struggle to get him all the way down to the cafeteria kitchen without drawing attention, but Spike managed it in the end. Then he let go and chomped down again, this time on the other side of Antonio’s neck. The bloke screamed, and this time Spike let him. But the geas was starting to bug him, and he couldn’t quite fill his stomach. Still, it was a good start. Spike released the man. “Oh, dear. Seems like I lost my grip,” he said around his fangs. “It’s too bad. If I don’t hurry up and grab him again, he might escape.” He made a mock reach for Antonio’s arm. “Oops. Missed. Maybe he’d better _run_.” 

Antonio took the hint and went the other direction from Spike, but of course, there was no way out of the kitchen. The fire door was locked, and Spike was gaining on him. Spike grinned. There it was. The realization that there was nowhere to go, and that Spike was almost on top of him. But there, there, the obvious open door, and Spike started narrating. “Oh, he sees it. He knows it’s got to be a trap, but what choice does he have? Big, scary vampire, bearing down on him, fangs bared. Already dripping blood down his shirt, his neck all bitten and his arms all bruised. Poor little man. What’s he going to do? How’s he going to escape? There it is, big, open door, all ready for him. Better not to go in. But what is he to do? There’s no other way out. Just the vampire, and a way to put a door between him and the fangs, and… oh!” Antonio took the bait and jumped into the freezer, slamming the door behind him. The door that Spike had sabotaged to no longer open from the inside. 

There was a very, very small chance that Antonio would survive if someone found him before morning. Spike had planned on putting a lock on the door if the geas would have let him, but it became very clear as he fingered the lock in his pocket that that was clearly going to kill the bloke, and it wouldn’t let him. Still… if no one came into the kitchen before breakfast, Antonio was as good as frozen to death. Spike wiped blood off his own chin with his thumb, sucking it off sensuously. “Well, that worked out nicely.” He grinned, then he chuckled, then he let loose with an entirely cathartic evil laugh. True, he’d been killing demons with Buffy, but to climb through a loophole like that, and come through on the other side? Oh, yeah. Priceless. 

A thump came from the other side of the freezer door, but Spike ignored it, and the geas let him. Spike had been testing, since he hadn’t been sure. Fortunately Spike’s supposition had been correct. The geas stopped him from killing. It apparently had no problem with Spike helping a victim into killing himself. He thought about waiting through the night until he was sure the bugger was dead, but he was afraid the geas might kick in if he hung around, and anyway, that sounded boring. He’d check tomorrow if someone was found dead in the freezer, and if he wasn’t, Spike could always try again. Maybe a dead-drop kind of trap? Crossbow trigger tied to a door? Obvious, overdone, but you know, classic. There had to be other methods.

Spike fantasized about new and inventive ways of tricking humans into killing themselves all the way back to Revello Drive.


	15. Change Partners

  
  


Angel lay in bed, still feeling sick. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the poison -- he’d gleaned enough from his moments of lucidity to have learned he had been poisoned -- or because of what Spike had said. 

It had been a year ago, just after he’d started helping Giles properly. Willow had just been turned, the Library Squad was just starting their nightly patrols, and Angel had felt he couldn’t just sit there and wait any longer. Eventually Buffy would come, he had been promised she would come, and when she did come he wanted something to show her. And he’d been impatient, because it had taken Buffy so long…. 

He’d gone to Darla, catching her alone, and tried to plead with her to help him defeat the Master. He’d thought if she’d just join forces with him, if he could seduce her into turning against her Master, then at least the worst would be mitigated. Some part of him had hoped Darla would drop everything and fall upon him, but instead she’d pulled a gun and shot him, over and over and over, and he’d had a stake, and…. 

He wondered if that was really his destiny. To kill his sire and leave himself alone for all eternity. Darla hated love, but there was a real bond there. Was it love? He’d have said no before the soul. Now, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to love Darla, because he resented her for his curse, and resented that she wasn’t willing to accept it, but when he was honest with himself he knew he loved her. But he’d killed her, killed her because he’d been holding out for a dream of a girl who would never, never love him back. 

Because if Spike was right (Spike was right) and if Spike were telling the truth (Spike never lied if the truth was more fun) then Buffy really had just rejected him utterly. Here he was, poisoned and helpless, and she’d rather offer her blood to Spike than to Angel. 

He lay chained up on the bed, and the sound he heard himself making was definitely a sob. 

A dark head came into his line of vision. “What could drive my dark father to tears?” 

Angel gasped. “Dru,” he whispered. “You’re here?” 

She sat on the bed and looked down at Angel. “They left me all alone. All better and all alone. What’s the matter, Daddy?” 

Angel tried to sit up, but the manacles prevented him from much beyond lifting his head higher on the pillow. He was nervous. He’d taught Drusilla how to torture far too thoroughly, and here he was weak and chained up and helpless. Was there anyone in the house? It sounded quiet above him. Usually the only person left at home while they patrolled was Anyanka, and Anyanka was probably not the best person to save him from Dru. Dru might take it into her head to hurt her, and then where would he be? 

“Dru, why don’t you let me loose?” Angel asked rather than answer her. 

“Don’t you like your chains?” Dru asked. “I remember the chains. I remember the chains in the convent when you strung them up. I remember when you hung them from the ceiling. Do you remember that?” 

“Yes, I do,” Angel said quietly. 

“I remember lots of things. Like custard and fresh tea. Do you remember what fresh tea tasted like, when it poured down your throat, hot and wet like the blood?” 

“I remember,” Angel said. 

“I remember the tea times we shared with Grandmother, and how we’d drown them in their cups. Don’t you miss those times?” 

“I remember what we shared,” Angel said quietly.

“Don’t you miss it?” Drusilla pressed. 

Angel thought about this. “I miss it,” he confessed. “But I can’t do it anymore.” 

“Do you miss Grandmummy?” 

Angel closed his eyes. First Spike, now Dru. “Yes,” he said. 

“Then why do you fight so hard against us?”

“I don’t want to fight you, Dru.” 

“She’s in your heart,” Drusilla said, rubbing at Angel’s chest. “But you’re not in hers. She doesn’t want aught to do with you. Wouldn’t you rather kill her, like you killed Grandmummy? Wouldn’t that be easier for you?” 

“You mean Buffy?” Angel shook his head. “I can’t kill Buffy.” 

“You love her?”

“Yes.”

Drusilla shifted her hand, and cloth ripped as she cut down his shirt. 

“Dru--”

“She’ll cut you open, she will,” Drusilla said. “Just like this.” He felt her nails on his flesh, but she didn’t hurt him. She could have, since he knew Drusilla had perfected sharpening her nails, but she didn’t do more than scratch gently. Felt good, actually, which worried him. Drusilla knew the juxtaposition of pleasure with pain. She looked up into his eyes. “I missed you, Daddy.”

“I know.” 

“Why didn’t you love me anymore?” she asked. “When Darla left, you could have stayed with me.” 

“I have a soul, Dru,” Angel said. “Nothing can change that. I couldn’t go back to our old ways, I couldn’t.” 

“Why couldn’t there have been new ways?” Drusilla asked. “We’re together now.” 

“And I’m glad about that,” Angel said. He was. It was probably evil to admit that, but he was. With Spike and Drusilla under this geas, it had been almost like having a family again. Not that he’d done much with it, instead just allowing it to _be_ while he moped upstairs and thought about Buffy, but it had been nice knowing the two of them were _there_ , not killing, not weighing on his conscience, but there, available to him if he wanted to reach out for them. The constant bickering with Spike, the dreamy wonder of Drusilla, it had felt right to have those within arms reach. 

And now that Dru was healthy, he knew he’d never have it again. They’d find Willow and Xander, the geas would be lifted, and then he’d lose them. He’d be all alone. He sniffed, feeling heartbroken still. God, he was not a weeper. This had to be the poison eating at his inhibitions, because the last person he should show weakness to was Drusilla. That was the real reason he’d abandoned her when Darla had abandoned him. Dru would have followed him forever, but she would have tortured him regularly, because she could. 

Dru’s hand continued caressing his chest. It went up to his throat, and he expected her to jab her thumbnail into his carotid or something, but all she did was fondle his jawline, run her thumb over his lips. “I still love you, Daddy,” she whispered, and bent down to kiss him. 

Angel let her, still nervous, which was an odd sensation, actually. Nervous like a schoolboy receiving a first kiss, when the kiss was from a creature he’d created completely. He felt like Pygmalion under the power of Galatea. 

“You’ve got to let me go, Dru,” he said when she’d finished. She’d either listen, or gut him, and he couldn’t guess which. 

“But you’re not well, Daddy. The nasty blood is still working through your veins. It might eat you alive. Can’t you give that to me, instead?” 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You need new blood. Do you remember when you took my blood, Daddy? When you bit me and bore me, when you took me with you? I could be your sire now. You could take me into you again. You made me strong again. Now I can help you.” 

“Drusilla….” 

Dru bent over him again, but this time instead of kissing him, she pressed her throat to his mouth. “Aren’t you hungry, my Angel?” she asked. “Isn’t this what you always wanted of me?” 

Then a clink happened, and Angel found his arm released, and he knew he should shove her off him, free himself from his chains, and then… then what? Because it wasn’t as if he could go and find Buffy. She’d abandoned him, rejected him. She was willing to work with him, but she didn’t want any more. She would not offer her blood to him. And here was Drusilla, and she was cuddled up atop him with her throat bared, and her body felt good to him, and her words sounded sweet, and he had been so alone. 

His hand curled over her head and he held her gently, then let himself vamp out and take what she was offering. The vampiric blood pooled in his mouth, and he sucked and sucked, the taste foreign after a hundred years, but redolent with memories of biting Drusilla, Darla, even Spike, of sharing or stealing blood from his vampire family, of being part of them again. He shuddered and pulled her closer, and his other hand wouldn’t go around her, so he contented himself with sitting up and gripping her hard with his free arm, and her other hand found his bound one and held it. He groaned at the warmth he felt from her cold hand, the acceptance, the love, dammit. Why had he never realized how she still loved him even now? 

And then he realized he felt better. The sickly, heavy feeling that had been keeping him disoriented was lifting. Drusilla’s blood was curing him, or at least diluting the poison in a way the animal blood just hadn’t done. He pulled away from her for a second and gazed into her face. Her blue eyes were shadowed and she hung in his arms. “That’s right, Daddy,” she said. “I don’t mind if you love me.” 

He felt a sting of something flood through him. Relief? Passion? He didn’t know and he didn’t care. It had been too long feeling nothing but despair. He reached over to undo his other wrist from the manacles, and then he was free, and Drusilla was still there, her throat bleeding from his fangs, and he caught her back into his arms and kissed the wound, and then he kissed her, passionately, hungrily, taking in deep breaths to better catch her scent, her taste, her self. 

Dru arched over him, straddling his legs, and Angel had a moment, just a moment when he wondered… should I do this? Do I let myself do this? And the answer he came up with, tired and poisoned and disillusioned as he was, was yes. He was absolutely going to let himself do this. He shouldn’t, he knew that. But he was going to. 

Drusilla’s dress was unbuttoned in a moment, and beneath it she wore a white satin slip, and he groaned at how pretty she was in it, how much it made her look like she did in the old days, with her petticoats and her stockings. Dru pulled the shirt off his shoulders and moaned as she was able to caress his whole chest, his shoulders, his arms. She kissed him, and he tasted blood, and realized he was still in his fangs, but whatever, she loved him anyway, at least for now, at least until her madness shifted her the other way, and he ran his fangs gently over her cheek, back down to the bite on her throat, and he kissed her madly and she ground over him. A moment later she was crawling down his legs to pull his trousers off, and then he was naked and she had his cock in her mouth, and he yelled with how good it felt, because it had been so long, _so god damned long!_ And now she was sucking, and he pumped into her mouth, down her throat, listening to the grunts as he forced himself deeper into her, and she let him, passive and submissive, his own creature, his own demon daughter, unable to turn away from him even now, even now, even now. 

A moment later he came, too quickly in his opinion, and he screamed with the release of it, making the raven caw at him from its cage. He sat staring at the basement ceiling, gasping, and then Dru was crawling back up him, and he could only lay back, let her pull him down the bed, and slowly ease her body over him. She wasn’t going to let him stop there. She thrust her body over his, rubbing her cunt over his prick, pushing him toward hard again. She was going to succeed, too, because her weight felt like magic, and her body felt like a gift, and so what if it was a gift from hell, it was _his_ and he was going to take it. It was his. 

She was his. 

***

Spike was whistling as he came into the house, still high on the kill, on Drusilla’s cure, on tormenting Angel, on just about everything. He slipped through the back door which he had kept unlocked when he left. He took out a paper towel from the roll on the wall, wetted it in the sink, and wiped his face quickly, just to make sure he had no blood on it. Didn’t want Dru getting jealous that he’d had a treat when she hadn’t. Now she was better, he’d start taking her out with him, find ways to hunt easily. The fact that the hospital was pretty easy to break into, and wasn’t protected like a private home, had given him ideas on hunting opportunities. 

Still, that was all for later. Now it was time to get back to Dru, maybe tease Angel a bit more, and then -- well, Spike was getting tired, and was sick to the teeth of having Angel in his bed. Maybe it was time to just bite the bullet and claim Angel’s bed until the bugger was unchained. Maybe he could draw genitalia on the bastard’s art sculptures while he was up there. 

Spike was pursing his lips to start whistling again as he slipped down the stairs in victory to find his beautiful princess when he stopped. Dru was on the bed, and Spike really, really wished he thought she was doing something else. But it was damningly obvious what she was doing. Angel was lying on his back beneath her, stark naked, and Dru pulsed over him in only her slip, grunting and moaning with her head thrown back, her face in ecstasy, her hair mussed and wild as only sex could make it. Spike drew in a sharp breath as every atom of joy inside him evaporated in an instant. The fresh blood in his stomach churned, his skin prickled, and something caught in his throat. He hoped it was a scream. That was the best option for what could have just choked him. 

He wanted to say something, but the words had fled from his mouth, from his head, from his freshly shattered heart. He stared in shock at the tableau, and even as he watched Angel made a groan and grabbed up at Drusilla’s breasts, freeing them out the top of her slip, making them shine out like pink stars above the white satin. Angel’s hands kneaded at them, hard enough to leave marks, making Drusilla moan with pleasure at the pain, and Angel growled. He shifted and threw Dru down on her back on the bed, rolling atop of her, thrusting his hips, his bare buttocks humping and pumping between her spread legs, and Spike knew he couldn’t hold the anger. 

If he could, he would have confronted them. Anger would have been perfectly acceptable, rage would have been understood. And Angel was weak, Spike could probably have torn the bastard’s head off, but... he couldn’t let them see him like this. Not like this, not with what was happening inside him as he witnessed this, Drusilla thrusting up and fucking Angel, giving herself to Angel. To Angel, not to Spike, who had stood by her side for the last year while she weakened and deteriorated, unable to make love to him, while he clung to her life with her, holding her together by the faintest of threads. No, he couldn’t face them. This was the wrong emotion, it was weakness, it was frailty, it was brokenness, and they’d both see him dead for it. 

And they might see him any moment. Might see him standing there, wrecked, shattered, unhinged. Any moment now he’d sob, and then they’d definitely know what was happening to him. That he was too weak to even feel anger. That she was right to turn from him. That he had only ever been surplus to requirements when Angel came into the picture. 

So Spike did the only thing he could do. He turned around and climbed back up the stairs, and simply left them to it. 

He couldn’t focus his eyes. He ran into the island as he crossed the kitchen, making a mug that had been on it fall to the floor and break. He staggered around the counter and groped blindly for the back door. He couldn’t open it, the handle wouldn’t turn under his hand. He finally realized he wasn’t actually holding it right, and then the door sprang open, and Spike fell out into the night, the comforting night that held no comfort, because there was none to give. He stumbled across the porch and then lost the ability to stand. He closed his hand on the porch rail and sank down onto the steps, still unable to see properly. 

That was because of the tears. 

He hadn’t realized when he’d gone from shock to tears. Probably still on the basement steps. He just sat there and cried and cried and cried. He held back any sobs, any sounds, any indication he was crying save for the tears on his face, but they wouldn’t stop, and they wouldn’t stop, and there was nothing he could do until they did. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t feel anything but this nameless, uncontrollable _emotion_ that had so much pain and betrayal and despair and self-loathing and hatred and emptiness and horror that it couldn’t be pinned down as any of them, and so he just sat there and felt it bearing down on him, a weight as deep as the sea. 

After a time the weight shifted. It began to come in waves, unbreachable waves of horror that then faded into moments when he realized what a sod he must look, staggered out here on the porch, sobbing silently into the night all alone while Angel and his Drusilla shagged like bunnies on Spike’s own bed. On the bed Spike had gotten for Drusilla. On Spike and Drusilla’s bed. And then the emotion would come flooding back and coherent thought would vanish, and he’d sob, and be borne down under it for long, unreadable minutes. And then it would fade again, and he’d be aware of the sound of crickets, of the cool night air on his face, and he would muse that it was an awfully pretty night for his world to have ended on, for everything he’d held onto since Angel had left them to be shattered, shattered utterly, a night for him to have lost Drusilla on, and then the wave would come back and drown him again. 

It was during one of these receding waves that Spike heard Oz’s van pull up, and the door open, and yeah, this was about the time when Buffy told the rest of the Library Squad to go home. Usually she then hopped on her motorcycle and did a sweep looking for Willow, or lacking that for something else to kill. Spike noticed without moving his head that her motorcycle was here in the back yard behind the fence, because it was less conspicuous in the yard than it was on the street, which meant that she’d probably be coming back here to get it, and he couldn’t bring himself to care. The wave hadn’t let up that much. So he just sat. 

Buffy didn’t come through the house. She came up through the back gate and paused when she saw Spike on the steps. He hoped she’d just get on her bike and go, but he didn’t have much room inside him for hope, so it was fleeting. “Spike,” Buffy said. “You left the door open.” 

It was her usual voice, snappish and harsh, and Spike couldn’t take it. It was like she was punching at a raw wound. He wanted to cringe, but he still couldn’t move. He just closed his eyes instead, and two new tears slipped out from under his eyelids. 

She came closer and then stopped, and he hoped again she’d go away. No one could see him like this. He had to be strong, had to be smart, had to be the one with the flippant joke and the fist like iron, but he’d been that, and it wasn’t enough. It was never, ever going to be enough. 

“What’s wrong?” Buffy asked then, and her voice sounded different. Different enough it didn’t hurt him anymore. He still couldn’t answer. She took a step closer. “Has something happened?” 

He thought he’d break if he tried to respond. More tears trickled down his cheeks.

“Is there something I can do?” she asked quietly. Her voice had become positively soothing. He wished she’d speak again. 

Quietly, without any fuss, she sat down on the porch beside him, and a second later he felt her hand on his shoulder. He couldn’t feel her warmth through the leather, but the weight of it was steady and strong and solid, and it reached him. His head sank as he found himself able to move again. He thought that was probably better. 

But maybe it was worse. He found himself sobbing in earnest now, and he could actually react to it. He covered his face with his hand, half embarrassed, half soothed by her presence, and then he tried to wipe the tears away, but they kept coming anyway, and he grunted in annoyance at them. Why’d he have to be a weeper, anyway? In front of the slayer. 

Buffy’s hand slid down his arm a little before releasing him, but she didn’t get up, and she didn’t try to make him talk. For a long moment they just sat there in the peace of the night, listening to the crickets, to the wind in the trees, to Spike sniffling randomly as he kept trying and failing to get hold of his tears. 

Slowly his sniffles faded, though he couldn’t say he’d stopped crying. He’d just run out of tears. Randomly his shoulders would shake, but at least he wasn’t actively sobbing anymore. 

“I’ll be right back,” Buffy said into the darkness, and she stood up. She disappeared into the house. A few minutes later he heard the kettle boiling, and a minute after that Buffy came out with a warm mug of something she held under his nose. Hot chocolate. He sniffed and then lifted up his hand to take it. It wasn’t a cup of English tea, but even holding the warmth was like someone had released some of the pressure off the pain bearing down on him. 

She sat back down beside him while Spike put both hands around his mug and brooded over it, breathing in the scent rather than drinking anything. She had a cup herself, and she sipped it slowly, looking back at the stars. “I didn’t know vampires could cry,” she said. 

“You don’t know everything.” Spike heard the words, and was pleased to realize he’d said them. Good. This meant he could become himself again, with time. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against his mug. 

“I’m going to assume this is to do with Drusilla.” 

Spike didn’t confirm or deny. 

“I also assume that since you aren’t trying to kill everything in sight that she’s not hurt or dead.” 

“She’s in there shagging Angel.” He heard those words too, and was shocked by them, but he supposed he must have said them, too. 

There was a long beat. “I’m sorry.”

Spike sucked in a long breath, then let it out. He looked down at his hot chocolate, not really seeing it. “It’s the way she’s made,” he said, and it was the first time he felt like he’d actually said something. “Angel cocked it up. Should never have agreed to do this if he was involved.” He shook his head. “Don’t know what I expected, leaving them alone together.”

Buffy said nothing for a moment. “You shouldn’t have to worry about that. It’s not on you. It’s on them.” 

Spike made a sound that could have been a chuckle if it wasn’t so tragic. “I can’t blame her,” he said. “Angel owns her. I just… I thought he didn’t want her. That made it safe.” 

“Are you sure they’re…?”

“Positive.” 

“And that she’s, you know, up for it? She can be a little dreamy, can’t she?” 

“Trust me,” Spike said. “They were both up for it.”

Buffy made an awkward noise. “Guess Angel’s feeling better, then.” 

“Looked like they both felt great.”

“I guess that’s….” She didn’t say good. Spike was glad she didn’t say good. He took in another breath of the steam off his hot chocolate. 

They sat in silence next to each other for a long moment. He was glad she was there, this dangerous presence at his elbow, who could kill him with a gesture. Or, well, couldn’t, with the geas, but should have been able to. But she wasn’t trying, because they were… friends? Allies? Roommates? She didn’t because she didn’t, and there she was, a sting of power in his awareness, and he closed his eyes and just felt it there. 

“I don’t suppose you want to come with me and kill something?” Buffy asked. She turned her head to face him, and he only looked at her. Then she shrugged. “Suppose not. Figured I’d offer.” 

“Some other time,” Spike said evenly. 

“There anything I can get you?” 

Spike considered. “You got any of those little marshmallows?” he asked. “The tiny ones.” 

“I’ll put them on the shopping list.” 

Spike sighed and finally took a sip of his cocoa. It didn’t taste good. It didn’t taste of anything much, but the warmth felt good, so he took another sip. He frowned up at the sky. “You ever had anyone betray you like that?” he asked. He was genuinely curious. She was being so inherently comforting that he felt she must know where he was coming from. 

“When my dad kicked me out, I guess,” Buffy said. “I was so angry, I couldn’t even cry. But like this, no. I’ve never had a boyfriend.” 

“Never?”

“I’ve fucked people,” Buffy said. “Lots of people. But no one I was ever close enough to to be betrayed by. Except maybe Carter, but he wasn’t my boyfriend.” 

“Who was he?” 

“My watcher,” Buffy said. 

That gave Spike pause, which surprised him, because how could he even care who the slayer had fucked with his whole life shattered around him? Though really, maybe it made sense. Focusing on anything other than how he was feeling was a good thing. What he actually said was, “That’s creepy.” 

“You’re a vampire.” 

“And that I think that’s creepy should tell you something,” Spike said. “You’re not even of age yet.” 

“What’s of age?” 

“Twenty-one or eighteen, depending on when you asked me, though I suppose your parents could have had you come out earlier. Just eighteen is more regular.” He’d remembered Giles saying something about her eighteenth birthday being later in the month. 

“Come out?” Buffy asked. 

“Coming out? Debutantes? Presentation at court?”

“You’ve really lost me.” 

“Sorry, I’m a century old, got some old-fashioned ideas still gathering dust up here.” He flicked at his head, then rubbed at his face. “Fuck. I got to figure out what to do.”

“How to confront them, you mean?” 

“What I’m even going to do. Confront…? You can’t make them feel bad about it. Just got to keep them from knowing how much it….” He stopped. Maybe he shouldn’t be showing weakness in front of the slayer? But god, it was so too late for that. 

“How much it hurts?” 

Spike closed his eyes again. “Do I tell them I know? Do I pretend I don’t? Do I try to kill Angel?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” 

“You were willing to let him die earlier today.” 

“I know that. Just killing him for this seems too… inhuman.” 

“We’re not.” 

“I know that, too. Just… can you keep the vampire blood feuds out of my house? When we’re done with this, you can do whatever you like to each other, just until then, keep the fighting mostly verbal?” 

“They’re not being very verbal down there right now.” 

“Don’t make me make a decision about this,” Buffy asked. “You kill him, I’ll have to figure out what to do about you, and then it’s all just ugly. Look, whatever you’re going to do, take it out of the house?” 

Technically, he was a guest. It was impolite to offend his host. Not that that had stopped him for these last weeks, but there was a difference between pissing Buffy off, and killing another guest in her own home. Even if it was a temporary home. “You won’t have to see it,” Spike promised. 

“I guess that’ll have to do,” Buffy said. 

The dream of killing Angel swelled in his head, and he fantasized about it for a minute. Angel was usually stronger than him, but if he got him quick, while he was still weak from the power ritual and the poisoned blood, maybe Spike could break him, stake him, and see him dust before the next dawn rose. Then he’d return to Drusilla triumphant and--

And the fantasy crumbled. “Dru would never forgive me if I killed Angel,” he whispered. It would be terrible. Her tantrum could last a decade. “I’m so tired,” he said into his mug. “I just want my own bed.” 

“Well, I can probably manage that,” Buffy said. “I’ll go down and check on them. I was planning on it before I came and found you. I’ll tell them to quit doing whatever they’re doing and--”

“Don’t,” Spike said. “Don’t bother. I’d rather you not get involved.” 

“They’re fucking up the dynamic under my own roof,” Buffy said. “I’m already involved.” 

Spike set the cocoa mug down on the porch railing with a sigh. “Please,” he said. “Please just _don’t_.” And to his disgust, at the last word he crumbled into tears again. He covered his eyes with his hand and shuddered his shame and humiliation out for a moment. 

Buffy let him cry it out -- fortunately it was comparatively short, this bout of tears -- and then stood up beside him. “Come on,” she said. She held out a hand for him. 

“Where are we going?” 

“To bed.” 

Spike blinked. 

“I mean not my bed. Well, yes, my bed, but you in my bed, and I go to the couch, and just not… yeah. That. That okay with you?” 

Spike thought about trying to sleep in the slayer’s bed, and finally landed on the only thing that he knew was absolutely clear about the potential of this. “Well, it would piss off Angel,” he said. 

“Which sounds like a win all around,” Buffy said, holding her hand out again. 

Spike took it and let her haul him up. God, he felt like he was made of lead. Buffy led him up the stairs and into her bedroom, which was stark bare compared to how homely he’d made his basement. She had nothing there but her mattress on the floor and the clothes in her closet, which she went to now and selected a few items. “I should probably change the sheets….”

“Piss Angel off more if you don’t,” Spike said, which was true. Spike covered in the slayer’s scent would drive the soulful ponce up the wall. 

“Well. All right then. I’ll, uh, leave you to it.” She left clutching a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt she was probably going to sleep in. 

Spike sort of wanted to think about this, and what it meant, and whether he’d done something dangerous in letting himself be vulnerable around the slayer, but he was too damned drained. He felt like one of his own victims, terrified and hurt and half dead. He took off his coat and boots, stabbed off the light, and fell into Buffy’s bed as if falling into a grave. 

Exhaustion overwhelmed him, but he couldn’t help but notice; god, did her sheets smell fragrant. 


	16. Racked

Buffy didn’t sleep. First of all, once she’d gotten Spike situated and come back downstairs, the sounds from the basement became far too obvious to ignore. She wanted to go down and shake the both of them -- don’t you see what you’re doing to him? -- but Spike had asked her please, please, not to, and she wasn’t going to go against his wishes when he was the one most injured, here. Though it was a good thing Buffy really hadn’t been interested in going to bed with Angel herself, or she might have been feeling very disappointed right now. So much for his true forever love.

Secondly, the vision of Spike sitting there on her porch, crying in obvious grief and betrayal, had shaken her to her core. That was _emotion_ right there. Plain, unvarnished, unadulterated emotion, telling her in no uncertain terms that everything she had learned from her watchers and her street-smarts about vampires was largely a colossal lie. Or that Spike was an even more wildly individual vampire than any other, even Angel, soul-curse or not. 

She’d never seen anyone look more shocked and grieved, and she’d seen vampire victims, rape victims, shooting victims, demonic pregnancy victims. But most of those had been -- in her personal demon-fighter experience -- done by strangers, to strangers, and hadn’t involved this level of dismissal and betrayal that Spike had just experienced. Not that she thought Spike’s new status as a victim of cheating equated those violent crimes, only that it was clear that Spike felt deeply about it. He _felt_. He had real, unquenchable emotions. She didn’t know what to think about that. 

So she didn’t. She got back up off the couch and jumped on her Kawasaki, trying to find a vampire, a demon, anything she could be distracted by and kill. She found a newborn vamp in one of the cemeteries, but it wasn’t satisfying to slay him. He was too easy to dust. She could almost hear Spike’s voice as she brushed the dust off her hands, muttering, “Wasn’t so tough.” She was frustrated, and really wanted something else to slay to snap out of it, but it didn’t happen. 

Finally she went back home and poked around the kitchen. She glanced at the clock. She had school in the morning, and no real time to sleep beforehand. That was going to be a hoot. The sun was coming up. She tried to watch TV, but nothing grabbed her, and she really, really wanted to have this out with Angel. Finally, as it got close to time to go and there had been no sign from either of them, she went back to the kitchen to wash up. She gathered the cocoa cups from last night, and slammed the kitchen door. She rattled pots and banged the refrigerator door and clunked dishes into the sink to wash them, trying to be as loud and irritating as possible until someone came out of the basement. Sure enough, it was Angel. He was shirtless, which pissed Buffy off no fucking end. She threw a wet dishtowel at him and glared. “Least you could do is put a fucking shirt on.”

“Uh… I need a new one,” Angel said, putting the dishtowel down. “It got a little… uh….”

“Covered in cum?” Buffy asked. 

“Ripped,” Angel said. “So you, uh….”

“Heard,” Buffy said. “I heard. First from Spike, and then from the two of you moaning down there. Full marks for exposition! I mean, I knew I’d tied you up in her bed with chains, but I didn’t think even you could take that as a fucking invitation to go… fucking!”

Angel sighed. “You don’t understand, Buffy. Drusilla and I--”

“Have a history, apparently. More than just being her sire -- which by the way, fucking your own daughter is fucking creepy.”

“She created Spike, too.” 

“Which doesn’t make it any less fucking creepy,” Buffy said. “Spike’s possible Oedipal issues take nothing away from your Electral ones.” 

“It’s not an Electra complex, it’s just the way vampires do things.” 

“I get that. But did you have to do it in my house, in the middle of my stuff, when we have a whole bunch of fucking problems we still need to solve? Not the least of which is where everyone is going to sleep now that you’ve fucked that up!” 

“I… I didn’t….”

“Think about that? Did you think about anything at all, other than your dick? Did it matter to your so-called conscience that you were going to break Spike’s heart?”

“Look, I do feel bad about that. I felt bad about it last night, but it--”

“Didn’t stop you, did it?” 

“She helped me, Buffy. Can you understand that? You wouldn’t help me, but Drusilla did.”

“Are you trying to tell me this is _my_ fault, because I wouldn’t roll over like a puppy at your angel face? Bullshit!”

“I get that you’re mad, Buffy, but this is bigger than you and me.” 

“There is no you and me!” Buffy yelled at him again. 

Angel ignored her. “And Spike doesn’t have a soul. It can’t matter as much to him.” 

“Oh, so _you_ have a soul, so _you_ get precedence over everyone else’s feelings? Well, on Spike’s behalf, let me tell you, fuck you.” 

Angel fucking chuckled. “You know, this jealousy is actually kind of cute.”

Buffy thought for approximately one second what she was going to do. Then she reached up, and pulled the curtains down from the window. The rod fell down with a clatter, and sunlight streamed in. Angel ducked. “Jeeze, Buffy!” 

“Get back in the fucking basement. That’s where you belong now, so fucking stay there.” 

“That wasn’t what I meant--”

“It’s what I mean! These curtains stay off until you figure out how to behave like a fucking human being!” 

Angel was smoking. The room was full of the scent of it. “I’m not human,” he said lamely. 

“I can tell!” Buffy snapped. 

Finally he retreated and slammed the door to the basement. Buffy grumbled. Maybe that wasn’t how Spike would rather she handled things. Well, she was pissed off, too. She wished the two of them fucking joy of each other. 

Then a thought occurred to her. She opened the door and shouted down at him, “This means Dru’s your responsibility now, you got that? She hurts anyone, _you’re_ dust!” And she slammed the basement door and went up to dress. 

She didn’t want to bug Spike, so she showered and then changed in the bathroom, wearing the clothes she’d worn the day before. Then she went and knocked on Anyanka’s door. “Anyanka? School today.”

Anyanka groaned, but Buffy heard something that sounded like “fine” so she went down and gathered the backpacks Giles had assembled for them. 

Fifteen minutes later, she and Anyanka were walking the few blocks to the school. Buffy was still pissed off, and kicked a rock down the street absently. When it careened off a fire hydrant and made a ding on a nearby car door, barely missing the window, Anyanka asked, “So who do you need vengeance on?” 

“No one’s wronged me,” Buffy said, but even she had to admit, she sounded glum. 

“Well, I’ve performed vengeances for sisters, friends, lovers. Not a lot, because it takes double the amount of irritation to summon a vengeance demon for another and not for yourself, but I have done it. Who pissed you off?” 

“Angel fucked Drusilla last night. Spike was heartbroken. Can you imagine what it takes to break the heart of a vampire?”

Anyanka looked surprised. “That’s a new one. No one has ever asked me to perform a vengeance on the _behalf_ of a vampire before.”

“I’m not asking for vengeance,” Buffy said. “You can’t anyway, can you?” 

Anyanka sighed tightly. “No,” she said with irritation. 

“It’s just, he was so broken. And he wasn’t even angry, that’s what flummoxes me. Like, he’s a vampire, he’s supposed to be angry.”

“Vampires usually manage their vengeance duties themselves, that’s true,” Anyanka said. “How would you like to avenge him? I can’t perform any meaningful wishes, but I could help you put frogs in Angel’s bed.” 

“I wouldn’t wish that on the frogs,” Buffy said. “I don’t know if there _is_ a way to avenge him. There’s a lot of baggage between the three of them. Spike is sort of… resigned.”

“Resignation is the bane of the vengeance arts,” Anyanka said. “Maybe I could try and rile him up a bit, see if I can’t persuade him to avenge himself on Angel.” 

“Leave Spike alone. The last thing he needs is someone on him.” She shook her head. “We’re going to have to sort out the sleeping arrangements.” 

“Are you sure they’re going to change? Sometimes people forgive cheating. I don’t understand it, but they do.” 

“This goes beyond just cheating,” Buffy said. “There’s something fundamental in their relationships that I think I’m just not getting. Something about that sire thing, and something about how Angel turned Dru. Spike let loose a little of it the night of the ritual, but I don’t know. I don’t think Angel loves Dru, not the way Spike does, but he seems to feel like he owns her. And both Spike and Drusilla feel that way, too. And I think the ritual brought everything into relief for all of them.” 

“Possession, obsession, and slavery are all things that can interfere with a clear-cut vengeance,” Anyanka said. “Social mores also carry a claim. I can’t perform a vengeance for cheating in a polygamous society, for instance, though I can for unjustly usurping one wife’s rights for another. I don’t know what the social mores are for vampires in this situation.” 

“I think any other vampires would tell you Angel can do what he wants, and Spike can either kill him for it or live with it,” Buffy said. “But I don’t think that’s fair to Spike.”

“Which begs the question, why can’t Spike just kill Angel?” 

“Because he loves Drusilla,” Buffy said. “And Drusilla loves, or is possessed by, Angel. I don’t think he wants to hurt her in any way, and killing Angel would hurt Dru.” Buffy frowned. She didn’t add that she thought Spike and Angel had some kind of relationship that was complicated in and of itself, but she was sure that was also a big factor in Spike’s resignation. 

“So what do you think we should do?” Anyanka asked. 

“I don’t know. I think we’ll have to follow Spike’s lead.” Buffy found another rock and kicked it down the street. Her aim was good. It landed in the gutter. 

“I’m not used to not acting in situations like this,” Anyanka said. 

“I’m not used to _being_ in situations like this,” Buffy said. “I’m supposed to work alone, live alone, act alone. One girl in all the world. Not one girl with all her demon allies and the Library Squad and some ex-watcher and her mom and everyone else.” She shifted her backpack to her other shoulder. “I’ve never had to care about anyone’s relationships before.” 

“Well. I guess now you do.” Anyanka frowned. “Also, could you try and not simmer so loudly? I mean, I don’t hear it the same way I did before I lost my powers, but your irritation is pretty obvious.” 

“I think you might have to deal with some irritation and agitation and general moodiness for the next few days,” Buffy said. 

“Well, if you decide on a vengeance, let me know,” Anyanka said. “I’d hate for one to happen without anyone involving me.” 

“I’ll make sure of it,” Buffy said. 

The rest of the school day was uneventful, except for Snyder stopping her in the hall to ask for that transcript. She mentioned it to Giles, and he said he’d see what he could do, and that in the meantime she should just keep going to classes as if everything was normal. Nothing, of course, was normal. Buffy filled him in on the events of the evening, leaving out how Spike’s obvious emotion had affected her, saying only that Spike had been upset and Buffy let him have her bedroom for the night. 

“Don’t let him get ideas about what’s appropriate, Buffy. They may be under a geas, but they are still vampires.” 

“Yeah, Angel made that abundantly clear last night. Because apparently souls don’t stop you from breaking people’s hearts.” 

“Spike’s not a person, you must remember that,” Giles said. 

Buffy said nothing, but wondered when it had happened that she and Giles had changed sides on this issue. She thought it might have had something to do with that dream she’d had, and that thought made her uncomfortable, so she put it away and went back to classes. 

When she got home, the vampires were asleep. Buffy had an impulse so she checked the TV. It wasn’t on the right station. Spike hadn’t watched Passions today. She sighed and went to get something to eat. When it came time to patrol she told Larry and Oz that none of the vampires were coming with them. She didn’t want to bug Spike, and she absolutely didn’t want to see Angel or Dru. They did a quick run, saved one old lady whose car tire had blown before she could get home for curfew, and staked two vampires who were cruising the main drag. 

When they dropped Buffy back home, she realized it was time to address something she’d been letting sit since Angel was poisoned. But she wanted to consult Spike before she finally did it. She went upstairs and knocked tentatively on her bedroom door. There was no response, so she tried it. Spike hadn’t bothered with the lock. It came open easily under her hand. The room was dark, the curtains were still drawn, and Spike’s heavy breathing came from the mattress. Shit. 

Buffy went to her closet and poked some stuff around in there, hoping the slight sound would disturb him. No response. Finally she bit the bullet and asked, “Spike? I need you to wake up.” 

“Not bloody asleep,” came the dark voice from the bed. There was a rustle and a thwap of leather being moved along the floor. 

“Why didn’t you answer the knock?” Buffy asked. 

“Hoped you’d go away.” A light flared as Spike lit a cigarette.

“Don’t smoke in my bed.” 

“Too late, I’m on my second pack,” Spike said.

Buffy sighed. That explained the smell. She went over and flicked on the light. Spike closed his eyes and flinched as if she’d turned on the sun. “What do you want?”

“I didn’t _give_ you my bedroom, I _loaned_ you my bedroom, and we have something we need to sort out.” 

Spike flopped over on the bed. Fortunately, he seemed to have gone to sleep clothed this time. 

“Spike, I need to know what you want to do.” 

That made him look at her properly. “About what?” 

“About Drusilla and Willow. Dru’s better now, and now I need to know where Willow is. We can’t just keep sitting on this anymore. Now do you want to ask Drusilla, or should I do it, or should we, um… ask Angel to ask her?” 

“Not a problem,” Spike said around his cigarette. “Willow’s still in my old lair.” 

Buffy blinked. “What?” 

“My old lair. It’s a good spot for vampires, has a night garden and everything. If she hasn’t gone back to the Bronze, she’s probably still there.” 

“You… you knew where Willow was this whole time?” 

“You knew I did. I told you she’d run me out of house and home.” 

“Yeah, but I didn’t think that meant she’d stayed there!” 

Spike shrugged. “I’m not sure she did, but it makes sense, don’t it?”

Buffy’s hands clenched. This little revelation had almost -- not quite, but almost -- cost Spike any good will his misery had built for her the night before. “So where… is your old lair?” she asked, her tone thick with tension. 

“Crawford Street. Big old Art Deco mansion, you can’t miss it.” He rolled back over and took another hit off his cigarette. “Turn the light off when you leave, will you?” 

“Where the fuck is Crawford Street?”

“It’s on the maps.” 

“Get up!” Buffy picked up his boot and threw it at him. 

“Hey!” 

“Get the fuck up! I get that you’re miserable, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you mope about in here indefinitely! Get up, get your coat on, you’re taking me to Crawford Street.” 

“Gonna dive in and get ourselves killed, are we?” Spike asked. 

Buffy sighed. She had done that with the Master, and it had proved a mistake. “No,” she said. “I figured I’d scout first. You can point out doorways, tell me where her minions would be stationed, that sort of thing. Then we’ll get, uh, everyone, make a plan, and attack tomorrow in the daylight.” 

“That’ll cut Angel out of your fight,” Spike said. 

“Well, maybe we’ll attack just before dawn, but I want them trapped by the sun. So get your shoes on and come on.” 

Spike just sat there for a minute. 

“I’m not leaving you alone until you get up and help me,” Buffy said. 

Spike gave a deep sigh. “Fine. I need to get to my car, anyway.” He rolled off the mattress and shoved his feet into his boots. He didn’t bother lacing them. He flopped over to grab his coat, burning a hole in her blankets with his cigarette. 

Buffy reached forward and grabbed the thing out of his hand, grinding it out in the pile of butts he’d already left on the window sill. “You are disgusting. This is the last time I let you in my bed.” 

She realized how that sounded, and waited for him to say something flippant with innuendo, but he said nothing. Just dragged his coat on and trudged down the stairs. Buffy followed, picking up another couple of stakes and her crossbow, just in case. 

They headed to the garage, where Spike wasted no time climbing into the back seat and digging through the clutter there. A second later he came up with a bottle of amber liquid, and started sucking on it like it was water to a man dying of thirst. Buffy let him. It wasn’t worth arguing about. She climbed into the front seat, took the paper off the windshield, and started the engine. “So which way do we go?” 

“Left out the driveway,” Spike said. “I’ll direct you from there.” He spread out in the back seat with his head back and swallowed down more booze. 

Buffy followed his directions, driving smoothly down the deserted streets, until she came to a turn and Spike said, “No, you went the wrong way. You needed to go north from the last stop sign.” 

“Yeah, I did go north,” Buffy said. “Now where do we go?” 

“Well, south now. You missed it,” Spike said. Buffy turned the car around, drove down another street, and then Spike swore. “Bloody hell, woman, can’t you drive? I told you Crawford Street, not bloody Hessen Lane.” 

“There was no Crawford Street.” 

“Yes, there bloody was, it’s right there,” Spike said, pointing behind him. Buffy turned the car around and looked. No Crawford street.

“Did you forget where you lived?” Buffy asked. 

“I was there for a year, I know where the fuck it is,” Spike snapped. 

Buffy reached behind and wrestled the bottle out of Spike’s grip. “Get into the front seat and tell me where the fuck I’m supposed to go!” 

Spike climbed over rather than open the car door, flopping down hard, running into Buffy with his knee and getting his foot in her face. Buffy shoved him away from her, and then Spike leaned over and tried to take the bottle back out of her hand. “No!” she said, snapping it away. 

Spike shrugged and dug into the glove box for his flask. Buffy took that away, too. 

“You find me the mansion, Spike.” 

“It’s just down there.” He pointed. 

Buffy turned down there. There was no mansion.“Now where?” 

“It was supposed to be there,” Spike said. “I swear it’s here…” He looked out over the street. “Yeah, it’s there. You can just see the corner of it over that house. Just down there.” 

“That? That there?” Buffy looked at the concrete corner of a building that seemed to brood over the others. It looked strange. She kept it in her vision as she turned the car down towards it. 

And then it wasn’t in her vision anymore. It hadn’t moved, it was just that she was pointing the wrong direction. She looked behind her. There it was. She turned the car around again and went down the street that looked like it would lead correctly. Not there, and now the corner of a building that looked right seemed to have moved over to the left somehow. “What the fuck is going on?” 

“Looks like a misdirection spell,” Spike said. “She had plenty of time to cast one.” 

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Buffy yelled at him. “You mean because you sat on this information for a fucking month, we’re not going to be able to get to her?” 

“There’s ways around them,” Spike said. “We just need to get a proper spell.” 

“And how long will _that_ take, you fucking lying vampire!”

“I never lied,” Spike said. 

“You said we’d need Drusilla to find Willow.” 

“I said Drusilla’s visions could do it. Not that I didn’t know already.” 

Buffy wanted to shake him. “How the fuck do we get around a misdirection spell? More research for Giles?”

“Sure,” Spike said, and somehow he managed to find another bottle at his feet. This time she let him keep it, since it was only beer. He snapped the lid off with his lighter and started sucking it down. 

“Another month? Two? Three? I’ll remind you you can’t escape this fucking geas until after Willow and Xander are defeated.” 

Spike sighed. It did look as if he’d forgotten about that. “We don’t need the librarian. We’ll just ask a proper warlock. Rack’ll do it if we pay him right.” 

“Who the fuck is Rack, and why the fuck haven’t we heard about him until now?” 

“He’s a warlock, big witchy noise here in Sunnydale. And you haven’t heard about him because he couldn’t cure Dru. There wasn’t anything I needed from him but that.” 

It sounded terribly logical to Buffy, which pissed her off. 

“So where the fuck do we find this Rack?” she asked.

“Downtown. But you’ll need me to get you in.” 

“Why?” 

“His entrance moves around, it’s cloaked. You can’t find it unless you’re into the big bad, a witch or a vampire, a demon, something.” 

“Did he work with the Master?” 

“He’s more freelance. He’ll work with anyone who will pay him.” 

“I don’t have a lot of money.” 

“He doesn’t take payment in money. Well, not usually, anyway. He eats people’s essence.” 

Buffy stared at Spike. “You want me to go and work with a guy who eats people’s essence?”

“Why not? Not like he kills them. Just gets them all het up and hungry for more.”

“I can’t give the essence of a slayer.” 

“Well, we’ll torture it out of him, then.” 

“Spike! I’m the slayer, not a vampire!” 

“And he’s an evil warlock, not a fluffy kitten. Thought you’d be all for torturing the evil.”

Buffy sighed. “And this is our only chance to get to Willow?” 

“In any reasonable time frame, yeah,” Spike said. “Here, just head downtown. I’ll try and find his place for you.” 

Buffy grunted and revved the DeSoto up towards the town. They drove for a while. “I’m not torturing anyone,” she finally said. 

“I’ll do it.” 

“Spike!” 

“Fine, then,” Spike said. “We’ll just _ask_ him if he knows the way into Willow’s.”

“Why would he tell us that? Does he know Willow?” 

“Sure,” Spike said. “I told you, he knows all the big noise in these parts.”

“And why would he tell us?” 

Spike hesitated. “Well, maybe you can just let him _believe_ he’ll get the essence of a slayer, and then, you know, bait and switch.” 

“And what will we give him instead?” 

“A punch in the nose?” 

“I’m not liking this plan.” 

“Stop, quick!” Spike said. 

“What? Are we there?” 

“Yeah, just pull over,” Spike said. He stumbled out of the car and around a back alley. Buffy came out of the DeSoto and followed him. “I think it’s just here….” He pointed at a non-descript door down a small flight of steps. 

“And that’s it?” Buffy asked. 

“Hang on, you wait here,” Spike said. He went up to the door and touched it gently. 

“You said it was cloaked,” Buffy said. “Is that the same as the misdirection?” 

“No, his entrance moves around and hides. Misdirection moves _us_ around and confuses us. There.” He punched the door and it opened under his fist. “Wait for me.” He disappeared into the darkness inside. 

Buffy tapped her stake around her hand for a while. “Spike?” she hissed. No answer through the open door. “Spike!”

A minute later she came in to check on him. He should have been back to get her by now, shouldn’t he? She came to the door and poked her head in. “Spike?” 

A musty, earthy scent hit her nose, something she recognized. Was that the smell of magic? No, she knew this too well, what was she…? She entered cautiously and ran into something in the dark. Something that clanked. She reached down to touch it, and found the smooth taper of glass bottles under her hand. A crate of bottles of something. 

“Spike!” Buffy hissed again. 

A second later Spike came through the darkness bearing a large paper shopping bag in his arms. He cradled it like an infant, and pushed past her quickly. The bag clinked. 

“Is this Rack’s?” Spike didn’t say anything, just went back outside. And Buffy finally recognized the scent. “You just had me rob a liquor store!” Buffy snapped at him when she caught up.

“You did nothing. _I_ robbed the liquor store,” Spike said. 

“Spike, I could kill you,” Buffy snarled. 

“Not until we break this geas. You coming, slayer?” He slipped back into the car. 

Buffy’s head sagged. She thought about hitting him over the head with each of his new bottles one by one, but she couldn’t be fucking bothered. She stumped back into the DeSoto and started it up. “Now where?” she asked, resigned. 

“I think Rack’s is usually up by the magic shop. I’ll tell you when to stop.” 

“Oh, like you did last time?” 

Spike had pulled a bottle out of his bag and petted it. “I’ll let you know when I feel anything.” He cracked open the lid of the bottle and took a swig. 

It was another ten minutes of driving around in slowly spiralling circles before Spike finally waved his bottle in a given direction. It was already a quarter gone. “Go down there,” he said. 

“That way?” 

“Yeah.”

Buffy turned down the alley he’d indicated and then up another one. She wasn’t sure she could get the car out of there easily. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, here,” Spike said, indicating a narrow turn. Buffy slipped the car in and found herself in a small parking lot. At least there would be space to turn around. She aimed the car toward the entrance so they could leave quickly and stopped it. “Is this where we need to be?” 

“Think so.” Spike took his bottle with him and slipped out his side of the car. Buffy noticed he was already staggering a little.

“Oh, boy,” she said as she followed him across the parking lot. He was holding up his hand and waving it in the middle of the lot. “What are you doing?” 

“Shut up,” Spike said. “There it is.” He stepped forward and fell through nothing and disappeared. Buffy tried to follow and ended up walking right past where he’d gone. She turned around. Still nothing. Then Spike stuck his head back out and grabbed her arm. “Come on, slayer. Haven’t got all night.” He dragged her in after him. 

Buffy found herself on a concrete apron in front of a door in the midst of nothingness. Everything on three sides of her was blank darkness. Spike opened the door and she followed him into what was obviously a waiting room. The walls were dingy and the carpet stank. A few people sat in uncomfortable looking chairs and couches, looking bored or anxious. One woman was jittering her leg. “Okay, this is creepy.” 

“Yeah, there might be a wait,” Spike said, sucking down on his bottle. 

“No, there won’t be,” Buffy said. She was not waiting in this creepy room for some creepy warlock to deign to see her. “He’s in there?” She pointed at the opposite door. 

She was all ready to go up and knock, or if that failed just push on through, but the door opened as she was pointing and a man stepped through, ignoring the woman who called out, “Rack, it’s my turn!” 

Spike looked surprised. “Okay, maybe there won’t be.” 

The man’s eyes locked on Buffy, and he strode through without looking at anyone else. “You,” he said. One eye was a different color than the other, and slightly off true, and his cheek was marred with a three pronged scar. He smelled of something acrid, like soup that had been fermenting on the stove for a few days. “How did you get in here?” He didn’t say it as if she shouldn’t be there, only as if he were surprised. He looked Buffy up and down, and she felt as if he were undressing her with his eyes. The hairs rose on the back of her neck, and her hand closed on the stake in her waistband. No. She was not going to feed this man. 

“I let her in,” Spike said. “She’s with me.” 

“Spike,” Rack said. “She’s with _you_?” He looked at Spike, took in Buffy again, and then said, “You’re next.” 

Buffy grabbed Spike’s shoulder as Rack went into his inner sanctum. “Thank you for playing, but _no_. This man is total bad news!”

“I didn’t say he was a doddle, I said he’d know how to get past the spell,” Spike said. “Unless you want to try and trust library boy to do it.” Spike didn’t wait for her response, just followed after Rack, taking another swig of his liquor. 

“Spike,” Buffy said. “Spike!” Maybe she should just leave? Spike wasn’t the most reliable person for information, and this seemed the ickiest thing he had gotten her into yet. Still, she was the slayer. She could probably handle a warlock. She took the stake from her waistband and held it firmly in her hand. It made her feel better about crossing that threshold. 

Buffy followed in and Rack closed the door behind her. She didn’t see him lock it or anything, but the closed door bothered her. She was in Rack’s territory now, and playing his game. “How can I help you?” 

“Just need a charm to get through a--” Spike began. 

“Not you,” Rack said. “You.” He stared at Buffy, ripping her open with his eyes again, and Buffy’s back tightened. She felt sick looking at the guy. “You’re just a typhoon of power, just woosh, right through the air.” He moved his hands, and a crackle of power slipped between them. _Kill him,_ said every inch of her senses. _Kill him, kill him._ It was worse than a vampire, because it was human, but it wasn’t human. She suspected he’d traded his eye for something demonic, which meant he wasn’t strictly human anymore. He reminded her of a zombie-maker that Carter had taken her to slay. For that matter, he sort of reminded her of Carter. Maybe she could use that? Carter was overconfident and thought he could handle anything. She’d let him do what he was going to do. She was not going to let Rack have his way. “What brought you here, sunshine?” 

“Evil,” she said. “That’s what always brings me out to play. I eradicate it.” She took a step forward. “Do you know what I am?” 

“Couldn’t miss what you are,” Rack said. “You’re the slayer. New in town, I hear.” 

He’d heard. Okay, she was common knowledge. 

“Strange that a slayer would be working _with_ a vampire. You get yourself into trouble, Spike?” Rack asked.

“I’m unorthodox,” Spike said, and took another sip of his booze. _He_ wasn’t going to be any help. Buffy rolled her eyes. 

“What is it that I can do for you?” 

“We need to get through a misdirection spell,” Buffy said. “Can you do that?” 

Rack nodded and quietly kneaded another crackling line of power through his hands. _Kill him,_ came that impulse again. Buffy tamped it back. “What would a slayer care for magic?” Rack asked. “Your type normally run with the turn of the tide. You let the monsters hunt you down and turn the tables. Magic is a little too active for your tastes.” 

“You’ve never met a slayer,” Buffy said. 

“How would you know that?” 

“You’re still alive.” 

Rack laughed a little, but his arrogance had been kicked. Some of the oiliness left his approach, and he stood a little straighter. “Whose spell is it you need to get through?” he asked. “A witch? A wizard? Or is it the vampiress?” 

“Don’t play games,” Buffy snapped. “You know perfectly well who I’m trying to kill. Everyone knows who I’m trying to kill. Great big raincloud in the sky telling everyone who I need to kill.” 

“Ah, ah, ah,” Rack said. “If I recall correctly, that blood rain was meant as a callout for your death, not the other way around.” 

“It worked both ways.” 

“So now you want to cut through Willow’s magics, do you?” 

“Obviously,” Buffy said. “Can you help us, or not?” 

“Well… maybe. You got to give a little to get a little,” Rack said. He approached Buffy with a predatory air. 

“Back off, or this goes in your gullet,” Buffy snapped, raising her stake. 

“Spike, what did you bring me?” Rack asked. “Were you trying to get on my bad side?” 

“Slayer wanted a spell. You knew magic. Better than that librarian she has to work with. Bloody geas caster,” Spike added under his breath.

“Spike!” Buffy hissed. Why the fuck was he just giving information? Spike took another swig of his liquor, answering that question before it needed to be asked. Buffy grunted again. 

“I’ll only take a taste,” Rack said, though he didn’t approach her again. “I’ll bet you taste of red hot cinnamon.”

“You couldn’t handle it.” 

“Maybe I could. I’m game to try.” 

Buffy took in a breath, and nearly choked on that acrid scent coming from him. “First question,” Buffy said. “Do you even know how to help? What do we need to get through the spell?” 

“Well, the vampire will have made a chit that passes you through,” Rack said. “She’d have given it to her minions, her allies, pinned it on her victims if she wanted to play.”

“A chit? Like what?” Buffy asked. 

“Talisman, totem, it could be anything,” Rack said. “A coin, a key, a pencil. Anything her people could carry around with them. Now she’s a vampire, so it’s all blood magics with her. It would have her symbol painted on it with her blood.” 

“Can you get me such a thing?” 

“I can cut right through the need for one,” Rack said, the oiliness back in his manner. “Make you immune… for the right price.” 

“And what’s the right price?”

“What do you think?” Rack asked. “How did you expect to pay for this little charm to get through Willow’s spell?” Rack said. “If you’re not willing to trade--”

“Have Spike pay for it,” Buffy said. “I’m off limits.” 

“Hey!” Spike complained. 

“Spike’s got nothing I want,” Rack said with disgust. “Hot smoke and cold chocolate, nothing I want to inhale. But you--”

“Back off!”

Rack oozed up to her, power crackling off his fingertips. “It won’t hurt you. You might even enjoy it.” 

“I said back _off!_ ” Buffy punched out with her free hand and fisted him in the solar plexus. He flew back and ran into a pile of pillows he had artfully arranged in the middle of his room. (And why? Buffy wondered. Did he regularly fuck his clients on the floor? Wouldn’t surprise her if he did.) He picked himself up from the middle of the pile and glared at her. His off eye crackled with power, and it flickered down to his hands. She dodged before he threw the lightning ball at her, which was a good thing, because it was fast. He was up a moment later, roaring with a power that was not human at all, and Buffy turned and stabbed out with her stake, hitting him in the temple. 

There was a time in her life when, faced with human evil like Rack, she would have hit him with the blunt end, knocking him out, and left him to wake up and carry on. Buffy was not so naive anymore. The sharp end of the stake stabbed right through Rack’s skull, and his eyes went wide for a moment before he dropped like a deer. The stake made a sucking sound as it popped out of his skull. Blood and brain fluid dripped from the end. 

“Bloody fucking hell,” Spike said in awe from the corner. “Well done, slayer.” 

“Shit,” Buffy snapped. “Now how the fuck do we get in to Willow?” 

“Dunno,” Spike said. “But that was glorious.” 

“It was impulsive,” Buffy said. 

“Hey, he tried to zap you, I saw.” 

“Yeah, you saw,” Buffy said. “For all the good you did me.” 

“Hey, I was… not… really caring very much,” Spike admitted, abandoning whatever excuse he was going to make. He took another swig of his liquor. 

“Great. Perfect. Are the cops likely to find the guy?” 

“Did it _look_ like this place is happy-time for the cops?” Spike asked. “Mayor might notice eventually.” 

“Shit,” Buffy said. Then she looked up. “Mayor. Rack said Willow would have given the pass chit to her allies.” 

“And?” 

“And isn’t the Mayor her ally?” 

“Maybe,” Spike said. 

“You are the most worthless vampire informant ever!” 

“Hey, this wasn’t what I signed up for, I just… I was… there was a thing, and… and Drusilla….” His face crumpled and he rubbed at his eyes. “Drusilla.” He wasn’t crying, but clearly he was remembering, and Buffy sighed. 

“Fine. Is there a back way out of here? I don’t really want to go through those junkies out there, not with brain fluid on my stake.” 

Spike took the stake from her and sucked on the end of it. 

“Ew.” 

Spike frowned. “Too salty. Bugger’s diet must have been all junk. Yeah, there’s a back way.” He led her through the cushions and couches to a door with an ancient Fire Exit sign inscribed on it. It opened under his touch and they went back out through the nothingness to the empty parking lot. Buffy and Spike climbed into the car and Buffy drove them back to Revello Drive while Spike did his best to empty his liquor bottle. 

“Can you even get drunk?” Buffy asked. 

“Certainly going to try,” Spike said, his voice slurred. 

Crying, getting drunk. Spike was certainly opening Buffy’s eyes to vampire biology. She realized she was going to have to address this next issue quickly, before he drank himself into a stupor. “Spike, where are you going to sleep?” 

“Huh?” 

“Are you going to talk with Drusilla? Maybe she’s sorry.” 

“Maybe she’s shacked up with Angel again,” Spike said. 

“I don’t think that… I mean you said it yourself. Dru’s not entirely in her right mind.” 

“So?”

“So maybe she didn’t know what she was doing…?” 

“Or maybe she didn’t know what she was doing when she took up with me in the first place, ever thought about that?” Spike asked. “If she can choose me, she can choose Angel. She chose Angel.” 

Buffy supposed he had a point there. “So what are you going to do? You can’t stay in my room.” 

“I’ll stay here,” Spike said, settling himself deeper in the car’s seat. 

“What?” 

“I’ll stay here,” Spike said. “I’ve got booze, I’ve got ciggies, I can get blood if I need it. I’ll be fine.” 

“Spike you can’t sleep in your ugly car.” 

“This baby’s not ugly!” Spike yelled at her, much louder than she thought necessary. “Are you, baby?” he asked, petting the dashboard. 

Oh, boy. This was going to be a treat. Spike swallowed more booze and leaned against the car window, singing to himself. “ _Take his love instead, and one day she’ll see, just how to say please, and get down on her knees…. Needles and pins….”_

Buffy slammed her way back to the house and left Spike crooning to himself in the corner of his car. But she did make sure there was a blanket in the back seat, just in case he wanted to come back into the house during the day. And even though it was dangerous, she left the back door unlocked for him. 


	17. Vengeance

Buffy cleared out the cigarette butts and changed her sheets, but she forgot the pillow cases and she didn’t wash the blanket, which was probably why her dreams were filled with Spike again. This time he cried on her shoulder in the darkness, and Buffy cradled him, rocking him back and forth, and then she kissed his tears away as she wouldn’t have dared do in reality, kissing each eye and then his forehead, and she whispered endearments to him, _It’s all right, I’m here for you,_ and Spike’s cool hands played along her arms, and he hugged her closely and said, _You’re glorious,_ and kissed her neck, along her jaw, and then his lips were tangled with hers, and she thought, _This is a dream. I should push him away,_ but somehow she didn’t, and there they were in her bed, and he was lying beneath her, supple and pale and she kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and he whispered, _Buffy, love_ , like she’d heard him murmur to Drusilla, and she said, _I love you,_ because that was normal in dreams, and she opened her eyes having still not had enough sleep, with Spike’s scent in her nose, and the smell of his cigarettes still lingering in the room, and she rolled her eyes at herself and climbed out of bed. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Just because he was all weepy and miserable did not mean she was allowed to get a crush on some evil vampire! She rubbed her face and took a much needed shower, and wondered why she was so agitated. 

She didn’t see Angel or Drusilla, but blood was missing from the fridge, so they must have come up while she was asleep, or out with Spike. She didn’t want to deal with them. Anyanka got up without prompting, and she and Buffy walked to school together. It was kind of nice, actually. It was like this weird moment of normalcy in Buffy’s decidedly un-normal life. She asked Anyanka if she wanted to sit in on the Library Squad meeting she was arranging for the afternoon, and Anyanka said sure. She had nothing better to do. 

When the Library Squad met in the library, Buffy filled them in on Willow’s whereabouts, and the misdirection spell which was going to keep them from getting to her. “So Drusilla came through with her visions?” Giles asked. 

Buffy opened her mouth to say that Spike had known all the fucking time, but she stopped. “Yeah, something like that,” she said. She realized that if Giles and the others knew of Spike’s duplicity they might take it into their head to dissolve the truce. And the truth was, Buffy wasn’t ready for that. She didn’t know why. Spike was nothing but annoying, Drusilla was nutso, and Angel was an absolute bastard, but she wasn’t ready to send them out into the wind. She’d grown accustomed to their faces, to paraphrase from My Fair Lady. She thought longingly of her mom suddenly, and fingered the phone in her pocket. 

“But you couldn’t get to Crawford Street,” Giles said. “I could do some research on misdirection spells, but I believe it takes some serious power to break such a thing….” 

“Apparently there’s a charm or a pass chit or something that Willow would have made. It’s got her blood on it, so a vampire could probably smell it out, if we could get close to one.” 

“How would we do that?” Larry asked. 

“Well….” Buffy shrugged. “There is the mayor? If Willow gave one to each of her allies, maybe he’d have one?” 

“That is only a supposition,” Giles said. 

“Best lead we’ve got though, yeah?” Buffy said. “I was thinking maybe we’d go tomorrow night.”

“Yes. You could take Angel or Spike with you. Drusilla still seems too erratic for such a mission.” 

“And I’m still pissed off at Angel,” Buffy said. “Maybe Spike will do it. I don’t know. He might not be ready by tomorrow night.” He would probably still be on his bender tomorrow night, if she could read his body language correctly. 

“Well, tomorrow might not be the best time, anyway,” Giles said. “It is your birthday. I was thinking we might have a small celebration.” 

A frisson went up Buffy’s spine. “No parties.” 

“I could bring a cake,” Oz said. “We could have it after we patrol. How old are you turning?” 

“No parties,” Buffy said, looking right at Giles. “You just stay the fuck away from me.” 

Giles knew instantly what she was talking about. She knew it by the look in his eyes. “Buffy, rest assured, you have nothing to fear from me.” 

“No parties,” she said. “Let me turn eighteen on my own.” 

“Buffy,” Giles said. He looked at the others and then stepped up to Buffy, leading her a little bit away. “Please. That wasn’t why I mentioned it. I realize you’ve been through a traumatic experience, but--”

Buffy snatched her hand away. “Would you have done it?” she asked, not caring if the others heard her. “If you’d been my watcher, my real watcher, if I’d been assigned to you, would you have?” 

Giles looked down. He hesitated for far too long, as far as Buffy was concerned, and then gave a deeply unsatisfactory answer. “I’m not sure.” 

Buffy shoved him -- gently, for her, but it still made him stagger back a step. 

“Buffy!”

“I told you to stay away from me.” 

“Before I met you, I would have said yes,” Giles said, ignoring the bewildered stares from the others. “They trained us to believe that a slayer’s ingenuity fails, that they grow to rely too heavily on their strength and that it makes them weak, makes them more likely to get killed. Buffy!” She stopped. “They told us that the Cruciamentum was made to train, to inspire. Now that I know what you’re like, what it truly takes to be a slayer, I can tell you I don’t think it’s needed. You think on your feet every moment. I see that now.” 

“But you would have.” 

Giles had the grace to look ashamed. “The council trains the watchers as much as it trains the slayers,” he said. “If you were told over and over again that it was for the greater good, wouldn’t you do as you were told?” 

Buffy hated to think he had a point. She followed the orders of the Watchers Council. She had let people die so she could hunt the vampires. She had allowed people to be tortured for the greater good. What was to say Giles was any worse than her? 

Or that Stiles had been? 

Buffy looked at the others, who were clearly bewildered by the exchange. “Go home. I’m not patrolling tonight. Or tomorrow night.” She turned to leave. 

“I’m coming with you,” Anyanka said, gathering her books. She followed at Buffy’s heels as she stomped home. “What was that about?” she asked when they had gotten a bit away from the school. 

“Watcher/slayer stuff,” Buffy said. “It’s hard to understand.” 

“You got all vengeancey again,” Anyanka said. “You sort of do that a lot.” 

“I didn’t need a vengeance demon,” Buffy said. “I took care of it myself.” 

Anyanka frowned, and Buffy looked over at her. Something about her silence seemed disapproving. “What?”

“Nothing,” Anyanka said. “It’s just… well… vengeance demons exist for a reason. Human beings have souls. Souls that can be corrupted by taking vengeance. Vengeance demons take that burden off the humans who could be wounded by hurting those they had once cared about. If you took vengeance yourself… that could hurt you.” 

“I have the soul of a slayer,” Buffy said. “I’m sure it can take a few knocks. The rest of me can.” 

“Still,” Anyanka said. “I wish I had been around to take the onus of the vengeance off you. Because you’re my friend. You shouldn’t have to carry that burden yourself.” 

“What about the burden on you?” Buffy said. “Or don’t vengeance demons have souls?” 

“Oh, we do. But when D'Hoffryn recruits us he transforms it into a demon soul, which isn’t corrupted by human crimes or influences. So whatever man you had to take vengeance on, well, hurting him wouldn’t have damaged me any.” 

“It was a woman,” Buffy said quietly. 

“Maybe that’s why I didn’t hear you calling,” Anyanka said. “Because with how loud you were in there? Someone should have.” 

***

Spike had spent the day in the car, drinking when he wasn’t passed out from the drinking. He’d claimed a lot of bottles of hard booze from the liquor store, so if he was careful he was pretty sure he could stay drunk for a week on what he had. Maybe five days, if it got really bad. 

Every time he started to sober up he saw Dru grinding away over Angel again, or Angel pumping himself into Drusilla, and then his imagination supplied new and exciting positions for them to take, with teeth and chains and nails, and then he needed more booze or he’d start to cry again. The garage smelled of oil and old dust, and it was dim and depressing, which was exactly what he needed. When darkness fell he considered getting up to get some blood from the fridge, but then realized if he went into the house he might see Dru or Angel, and since he was in absolutely no shape to fight with either of them -- physically or verbally -- he just decided to stay hungry and drink more booze. 

He was lolling uncomfortably in the back seat when the door to the car opened and a delectable scent hit him like a brick. Fuck. He nearly vamped out, but his face was too numb. “Slayer,” he groaned. 

“Shut up. I’m stealing your car.” 

Spike considered this. He realized he should tell her not to do that. “Hey, don’ do that,” he said, but she had already started it and headed out the driveway, taking him with her. “Don’ take me car.” 

“It can’t be traced to me. I don’t want anyone putting out an APB on my Kawasaki and tracking me down.” 

Spike considered this, too. “Why… would there be an APB?” 

“The Watchers Council can manipulate anything,” Buffy said. 

Spike looked out the window. Lights were flickering through the smeared paint. “’S dark,” he said. 

“Yes.” 

“‘S night.” 

“Yes.” 

“Where we going?” 

“Away.” 

“‘S cleared that up, then,” Spike said. He cuddled his bottle and let the rocking of the car lull him. 

Buffy didn’t drive far. It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes before she came to a stop and left the car, walking out into darkness. Spike opened his own door and fell out in a heap of empty bottles and sodden vampire. He looked up. He was sort of upside down. He saw a beautiful vision of the slayer, huddled in a pea jacket against the cold, staring out at the sliver of moon over the ocean, only the ocean was the sky, and the moon was where the sea should have been, and the slayer was flying upside-down. Her hair should have been hanging off her head, he thought, and then that thought made him laugh, and he rolled over. Everything went right side up, and made him feel dizzy. 

He crawled toward the slayer and then lay down and looked up at her when he got to her. They were on some kind of grassy bluff. Somewhere down the cliff there was a beach and the ocean, pounding away like the roaring in his head. He stared up at her. Buffy stared out at the moon, but finally looked down on him. “You really can get drunk,” she said. 

“Yup.” 

She looked back out at the ocean. 

“Why are we out here?” Spike said from his position in the grass. 

“It’s midnight,” Buffy said. “I couldn’t stay in that house anymore.” 

“Too much drama?” Spike asked. He wouldn’t have been surprised. 

“They know where I am.” 

“Who’s they?” 

Buffy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” 

Spike tried to sit up, and managed it, but he realized standing was going to be beyond him. “It matters,” he said. “Wha’s wrong?” 

Buffy turned back to the moon. “It’s my birthday,” she said. “As of about ten minutes ago.” 

Spike looked around himself for a present. For lack of anything better he passed over the bottle in his hand. “Happy birthday.” 

Buffy looked at first as if she might reject it, but then grinned and took it, sucking down a huge swallow. She made a face that was ridiculously cute, and then took another. Spike let himself lay back down. Buffy sat down beside him and began to drink steadily. There were some trees overhead, and the sound of the waves kept crashing into him as if he still had a beating heart. “Thump, thump, thump,” he said. 

“What’s that?” 

“Sometimes the ocean sounds like the pulse in your ears,” he said into the night. “Back when I still had a pulse in my ears. It’s like when I still had a heartbeat. Thump, thump, thump.” He rolled his head so his eyes were pointed at her. “You still have a heartbeat,” he said. “You should enjoy it. It’s like company. It’s like a clock sort of pulsing inside you, waiting for someone to stop it. Or your own personal mouse inside your chest, wiggling and wiggling.” He giggled at the thought, and Buffy laughed with him. 

“Wow, you are drunk,” she said. 

“Yup.” He giggled, proud of himself. 

Their laughter faded, and Buffy ran her hand through the grass, back and forth. Spike could see it about six inches from his nose. It looked white and alive and he thought it would be fun to bite. “Do you miss your heartbeat?” Buffy asked. 

“Only when I’m drunk,” Spike said. And just as quickly as the laughter hit him, a wave of melancholia hit for his lost humanity, and he sighed. Uh-oh. “Pass me that bottle.” 

Buffy took another swig before handing it over. Spike had to do some intense calculations about liquids and gravity, but finally managed to take a swallow without pouring it all over himself. Buffy let him, but then took the bottle back. 

“Are you going to get drunk?” 

“Yes,” Buffy said. 

“Good plan.”

“I thought so.” 

They sat and lay in silence for a long moment, punctuated by crashing waves. 

“You’re not celebrating,” Spike finally said. 

“No. I’m forgetting.” 

“What do you want to forget?” 

“If I talk about it, I’ll be remembering,” Buffy said. 

Spike thought about this for a long, long moment, a long enough moment that the stars seemed to jump. Or maybe he’d passed out. “‘S not your fault,” he said suddenly. 

“Hm?” Buffy said. 

“He was going to kill you. Wouldn’t have bugged him in the slig -- slyge -- slightest,” he said. 

“What _are_ you talking about?” Buffy asked, and she sounded a little drunk, too. Well done. 

“Rack,” Spike said. “You shouldn’t feel bad that you had to kill a human. I couldn’t do it, ‘cause I’m all geased up, but you could do it, and you had to do it, because Rack was bad news, you know? He was definitely going to zap you right up like a bug lamp. Zzzt. Zzzzt.” 

“I don’t feel bad about it.” 

Spike thought about this. “Thought you were the white hat.” 

“Rack wasn’t the first human I’ve killed.” 

Spike really, really wanted to bite her when he heard that. “Oh, really?” 

“Oh, really,” Buffy said. She lay down opposite him, so their heads were looking at each other, but their bodies were pointing the other way. “First was a sorcerer in Jamaica, raising zombies.” 

“Well, that sounds about evil as evil,” Spike said. 

“Then there was a cult doing human sacrifices. Then there was…. Actually, scratch that,” she said. “The first was a twenty year old junkie I let die when I was sixteen in the tunnels under New York. If we count all the people I let die, I’ve lost count.” 

Spike blinked at her. “You don’t sound drunk enough yet,” he said. 

“You’re right,” Buffy said. “I’m not.” She took another swallow of the booze, having performed, from what Spike could see, the same intense calculations he’d performed earlier. She drank and drank and drank and then took in a deep breath and said, “Wow. It’s really a lot easier to drink when you’re already drunk.” 

“I know. Gimme.” He reached out for the bottle. 

“The last one was two months ago,” Buffy said, passing it over. 

“Drunk?” 

“Person I killed,” she said. “Fuck, I’m remembering.” 

“Then remember,” Spike said. “Can’t hurt.”

“Does hurt,” Buffy said. “Did hurt. Gimme that back.” 

“Who’d you kill?” Spike said, pointing the bottle in her general direction. She managed to grab it.

“I killed my best friend,” Buffy said. “Fun, huh?” 

“I killed all my friends,” Spike said. “But they weren’t my friends. They were all bastards who made me feel useless and made fun of my poetry.”

“You wrote poetry?” 

“Shut up, I was good,” Spike said. Then he paused. “No, I wasn’t. I was terrible. But I was a good _man_ ,” he said. “‘S more fun not to be. Why’d you kill your friend?”

“Because she tried to kill me,” Buffy said. “Watchers have a thing they do, where they take their slayer, give them drugs to block their powers, and then lock them up with a vampire.”

“Sounds fun.” 

“Only for the vampire.” 

“‘S what I was thinking.” 

“Oh, fuck you.” 

“Later,” he said. 

Buffy laughed at that, a little helplessly, he thought. “I had to bite through his neck,” she said.

“How could you… how does that work?” Spike asked. “You don’t have fangs.” 

“I had teeth,” Buffy said. “I stopped his fangs with my fist and I bit him hard enough that his blood got everywhere. I must have got his carotid or something, it just spurted out. I was soaked in it. It got in my mouth, it made me feel dosed up. Like I was trying to turn, but I wasn’t actually dying yet, so it didn’t take. He lost enough blood he got weak and he let me go, and then he was staggering around, and I was staggering around, and I found this metal shelf thing, and I dropped it on him, and then I knocked a piece off of it with my boot and it wasn’t very sharp, but I sawed through his neck anyway, and then he was dust. And then I cried.” 

She shifted her head to look up at the stars. “I thought Monica would come save me. I really thought that. But she was all _I’m so proud of you Buffy_ , and it turned out she was the one who’d locked me in there, and I was like… fuck you, Monica Stiles. So I locked her in a suck house, and they ate her. I think that counts as me killing her, right?” 

Spike paused for a minute. “Yeah, I’d consider that a kill.” 

“You see?” Buffy said. “I can’t give a shit about Rack.” 

Spike thought about this for a minute longer. “Your Monica Stiles,” he said, “was a shitty friend.” 

Buffy sighed. “Giles says the watchers are trained just like the slayers are. I’m supposed to let people die so I can hunt vampires, so maybe they’re supposed to let slayers die. Is that right?” 

“No,” Spike said. “No, that counts as wrong. Sounds like a vampire thing. Like, you’re supposed to be all welcoming and helpful to the new fledge in the family, and then fuck his lady right in front of him and make jokes about there being no fucking destiny. And then beat him up and drain his blood and fuck him over and torture him to within an inch of his life, when I loved that bastard like a fucking brother.” 

Buffy looked at him. “You’re not talking about Stiles now.” 

“We were talking about a Stiles?” Spike asked. “I thought we were talking about betrayal.”

“Angel’s a bastard, isn’t he?” Buffy asked. 

“Yes. The watchers sound like bastards.” 

“They are bastards,” Buffy said. She sat up. “Kill all the watchers!” 

“Kill the watchers!” Spike yelled from where he lay. 

Buffy flopped back down on the ground. “Don’t kill the watchers. I feel bad when they die.” She started to cry. “I shouldn’t have killed Monica.” 

Her tears smelled like perfume. He’d never have done it if he wasn’t drunk, but he rolled over and gathered the slayer into his arms. He didn’t even think about it, and it was an awkward position, and he couldn’t really hold her properly, but he rubbed her shoulders and brushed her hair out of her face. “I’m a really bad man,” he said quietly. “So I know really bad things. That was really bad things happened to you.” 

“Don’t be nice to me, I’m supposed to hate you.” 

“Hate me in the morning,” Spike said. 

Buffy rolled over and put her head on his chest, and he shoved his arms between them so they were out of the way, and she put hers under his head, and they sort of lay there, staring up at the sky. 

“Why aren’t you cold?” Buffy asked.

“Vampire. We don’t feel cold.” 

“But you do. Your hands are cold, your body’s cold, but you don’t feel cold. Not like a corpse is cold, sucking all the heat out.” 

“We’re magic. We reflect heat.” 

“That’s kind of cool.” 

“It’s so we can fuck our victims without them feeling like we’re corpses,” Spike said. “So they don’t run away before we eat them.” 

“Ew. Reason is bad. Thing is cool.”

“You ever fucked a vampire?” Spike asked. 

“Gave a few blow jobs to lure out the others,” Buffy said. “Hooker’s all busy going to town, safe to come out and eat, and then oops, she’s got a stake down her cleavage.”

“You’re a positive praying mantis.” 

“And you love it.” 

“I do.” The stars jumped again. What was he doing here? Buffy was snoring gently against his chest. God, she felt warm. Spike found the bottle and sucked down the last of it while the stars wheeled slowly above their heads. 


	18. Happy Birthday

Buffy was oddly comfortable, given that her neck was cricked and her legs were cold, but there was a comforting weight atop her arm, and she was sort of cuddled into something, and the only thing that bothered her was the light that hurt her closed eyes. But then there was a fragrant smell, sort of an incense smell, and then something hot was on her wrist, and she looked down and saw a hand on her wrist, a hand that was on fire, and Buffy blinked at it, still drunk, and hungover at the same time, and it took her a minute to realize what was happening. 

“Spike!” she said, sitting up, and feeling a baseball bat to the head as she did so. Fuck, she drank too much. “Spike, get up, you’re on fire!” 

Spike barely groaned. Buffy took off her pea jacket and smothered the fire on Spike’s hand, but it wasn’t going to help for long, since the sun was getting stronger. Only the fact that they happened to be in the shadows of some straggly trees had saved him so far. “Spike, get your skinny butt up! You’re gonna burn to death!” She tried to shield him with her coat. 

“Huh?” Spike finally flickered his eyes open, and then groaned again, and Buffy kept holding the pea jacket over his exposed skin. 

“Get _up_ you worthless vampire! Come on!” Where was the car? Buffy glanced around. It was further away than she’d thought it was last night, and the back door still hung open. Buffy grabbed Spike's hand and tried to pull him into a sitting position, the jacket over his head. “Do you have a fucking death wish? Come _on!_ ” 

Spike finally crawled to his knees, and then Buffy helped him to his feet, but he was still drunk. He staggered and weaved and Buffy half dragged, half carried him to the car where she tossed him in, and then realized he was still burning, because she hadn’t replaced the paper on the windscreen, so she left Spike under the pea jacket and scrambled into the front, fighting her headache, and shoved the paper up, but the tape wasn’t sticky anymore, and she couldn’t make it stay. She looked in the glove box and found a roll of duct tape, so she slammed bits of it on the corners of the paper shield, her head full of pounding rocks every time she bent over, and the moving back and forth was doing terrible things to her body, and she realized she was going to have to do something about that, so she flopped over the edge of the seat and vomited out the open car door. Nothing was in her stomach but spent whiskey, and it burned her nose and made her feel vile. She scoured the car for something to blow her nose on, but found only Spike’s blanket, so she picked a corner and cleared the acid-tainted liquor out of her sinuses. Then, and only then, did she start to feel a little better. 

Spike was laughing in the back of the car. A sort of low, hollow laugh from underneath her pea jacket. 

“What’s so funny?” Buffy asked, feeling her head pound. 

“You don’t want me to smoke in bed,” Spike said. He laughed again. 

“We weren’t in bed, we were on the ground,” Buffy said, but the idea struck her as funny, too, and she chuckled, but that hurt her head, so she stopped. “Fuck, did I just sleep with a vampire?” 

“I just slept with a slayer,” Spike said. “I think I’m the one more compo -- compromised here.” His head lolled over to look at her as he finally dragged the pea coat off it. “Are you still drunk?” 

“Not enough,” Buffy said, though her face was still numb with it. But her head ached and she felt heavy, and not tingly drunk heavy, but over-drunk dehydrationy heavy, and she scoured Spike’s car for a reprieve. “Do you have any water?” 

“Nope.” 

“Are you sure? Have you looked?” 

“Never carry water. Don’t need to drink it, do I?” 

“So what do you do for a hangover?” 

“Get drunk again,” Spike said. He passed her another bottle. “Here.” 

Buffy glanced at it, but she was fairly sure it wouldn’t make the headache any better, and she really did need water. “How drunk are you?” she asked. 

“How wet is the ocean?” Spike asked. “How hot is the sun?” 

“So too drunk to drive me to a gas station,” Buffy said. 

“Sure, I could do that,” Spike said, sitting up, failing in that, and falling into the clutter at the back of the car. 

“Okay, that’s a no,” Buffy said. She didn’t feel safe driving, either. She needed water. She was going to die without water. She reached in her pocket hoping for something magic and pulled out her cell phone. Was that magic? Maybe it was magic. She flipped it open and stared at the list of numbers for a moment. God, her head hurt. What number could she call? 

She finally dialed one and hoped he’d answer. School probably hadn’t started yet. “Hi, Oz,” she said when someone answered hello. “It’s Buffy. I need you to rescue me.” 

“What’s up?” Oz asked. 

“I need like two gallons of water and some aspirin and--” 

“And some fresh blood!” Spike called out from the back seat. 

“And some fresh blood delivered to me. Like, it’s important. I need it now.” 

“Hangover special, huh?” Oz said. “Giles said you and Spike took off last night.”

“Don’t tell Giles where I am. Not until tomorrow. I’ll be back tomorrow, it’s just I need water, and I can’t drive….” 

“Tell me where you are,” Oz said. “I’ll be there with reinforcements.” 

“Where are we?” Buffy asked. 

“Search me,” Spike said. 

Buffy said, “We’re on a bluff. It’s… overlooking the ocean? It’s kind of by the college, it’s… um… got a tree?” 

“Look around you. Are there any signs?” 

“Uh….” Buffy had to open the car door again to look for signs. There was something printed on a garbage can next to the parking lot. “Coal Oil Point,” she said. 

“Right. I know where that is. I’ll be there within the hour.” 

“Good. Then I can start drinking again,” Buffy said, half to Oz and half to herself as she put the phone down. She looked hard at the bottle of whiskey Spike had handed her. “Is there anything softer?” 

Spike rattled around in the bottles on the floor, and a moment later passed her a beer. Buffy didn’t have a bottle opener, and didn’t fucking care. She snapped it open with her thumb, which cut her skin, but her thumb was strong enough for it. Spike made a noise and sat up. “You doing anything with that?” he asked. 

“With what?” 

“That,” he said, and picked her hand up from off the back of the front seat. A second later he’d wrapped his mouth around the cut and started sucking. 

“Ew!” She snatched her hand back. 

“Don’t tell me no one’s ever bit you before.” 

“I didn’t just _let_ them,” Buffy said. “God, you really are a vampire.” 

“Yep.” 

Buffy suddenly laughed. Then she laughed harder, and harder, hard enough that Spike got a worried look on his face. “Want to let me in on the joke, slayer?” he asked.

“It’s my eighteenth birthday,” Buffy said. “I gave myself drugs, made myself incapacitated, and locked myself up with a vampire who wants to eat me.” She howled and sucked at her beer, giggling now and again between sips. 

“That is pretty funny,” Spike said, but he wasn’t laughing. His eyes were dilated, and he couldn’t take his gaze off her thumb. 

“Oh fine, take it,” Buffy said, sticking it back behind her. “Bleeding’s pretty much stopped, anyway.”

Spike took her hand, and she tilted it away a bit. “No biting,” she said. 

“Yes, my liege.” His cool tongue lapped at the cut, suckling and tonguing, and he did bite with his blunt teeth just a little, making loud sucking noises with his lips, and Buffy giggled. 

“That tickles.” 

“Doesn’t have to hurt,” Spike said around her flesh. “Fuck.” He finally stopped and let her thumb go, with a final suck. The bleeding had stopped, but now her thumb felt wet and bare. She took her hand back and swallowed down her beer. 

“Well, now you can tell Angel you got to taste me when he didn’t,” Buffy said. 

“A worthy boast.” 

“He tried to pretend that it was my fault,” Buffy mused. “That he turned to Dru because I wouldn’t put out for him.” 

Spike paused. “Maybe he did.” 

“Still doesn’t make it _my_ fault,” Buffy said. 

“Didn’t say it did. Just that Angel will do what he wants to do, no care for how it hurts anyone,” Spike said. “If he can’t take one victim, he’ll take another. If he couldn’t get you, of course he turned to her. I’m just the idiot who let him.” 

“Look, this isn’t your fault any more than it’s mine,” Buffy said. “God, my head aches.” 

Spike reached forward and rubbed the back of her neck, just under the hairline, loosening the tension on the muscles there. “Ooh, your hand’s cold,” Buffy said. 

“Sorry.” 

“No, it feels _great,_ ” she said. “Don’t stop.”

Spike didn’t stop. His cool fingers rubbed into the hollow at the base of her skull, and he seemed to know his anatomy (she refused to think about why) because he slipped down along the joints and rubbed deep into the tissue, and Buffy made a guttural sound she couldn’t control, and then sighed. Spike stopped rubbing and let his hands rest on her shoulders. She leaned her head back on the car seat. “Spike?” she said languidly. 

“Yeah?” he sounded just as leisurely as she did. 

_Did you want to fuck?_ That thought bopped about in her skull for a minute as his cool fingers weighed down on her shoulders. But even as she considered it, something more pressing dawned on her. “I need a bathroom.” 

“Poor human chit.” 

“There isn’t one here.” 

“Nope.” 

Buffy glanced through the paint-spacked windows. “I’m going outside.” She opened the car door, and Spike’s hands only left her as she stood up. 

She found an isolated spot to do her business in, managing the best she could while still a little drunk, with a headache that tried to gouge out her brain through her eyes. She made it back to the car and fell into the back seat with Spike, hearing Spike sizzle as she did. “Sorry,” she said. 

“Here’s your beer.” 

“It’s empty.” 

“Then here’s another beer,” Spike said, passing it over. 

“You want to pull your trick with the lighter?” 

“Don’t you want to pull your trick with your thumb?” Spike asked with his tongue touching his teeth. 

“One track mind.” 

“I’m hungry,” Spike said, but he pulled out his lighter and performed some magic that snapped the top off the beer, and Buffy sucked it down. 

She sat back against the back seat cushion, nursing her beer and counting the pulses in her headache until a knock on the window startled her. “Rescue service,” said Oz. 

Buffy climbed over Spike to open the door that was opposite the morning light, and Oz knelt down to give her supplies. “Okay, we have five bottles of water,” he said, handing over a bag with some large bottles in it. “Should last you the day. Here’s your blood, Spike. I brought ibuprofen, because that’s better when you’re drinking, and here,” he pulled out a styrofoam container, “is breakfast.” He opened up the box to reveal two pancakes surrounded by a pile of eggs and what looked like twenty strips of bacon. “You need protein,” he said. “I always do whenever I… uh… stay up late.” 

“Are you secretly an alcoholic, and just haven’t told us?” Buffy asked, shoving bacon into her mouth. 

“I was in a band once,” Oz said. “Band mate of mine drank a lot, until….” He shrugged. He didn’t need to elaborate. It was Sunnydale. “Anyway, happy birthday, Buffy.” He pulled out a battered little candle and stuck it in the middle of the pancake. “I don’t have any matches,” he added. 

Spike leaned forward and clicked his lighter. “Happy birthday.” 

“Happy birthday,” Oz said. 

They didn’t sing the song, for which she was grateful, but she closed her eyes to make a wish. She opened them again. She couldn’t think of a wish. 

“Got a problem, slayer?” 

“Just let it burn,” she said quietly, and took another piece of bacon. 

“You’ll get wax on your pancakes,” Spike said. “May the slayer get her heart’s desire,” he murmured, and blew out the candle for her. 

Oz was looking at them curiously. Buffy wondered if he thought there was something going on. She didn’t suddenly reassure him that there wasn’t because, well, part of her wasn’t sure there wasn’t, anyway. But what was going on, she wasn’t sure of, either. “Well. I’ll leave you to it,” Oz said. He handed her another bag. “There’s some candy bars and a sandwich in there for later. I’m missing first period.” 

“Uh, don’t--” she said quickly. “Don’t tell anyone where I am, Oz. Please? Not Giles, but really not anyone. Not until tomorrow.” 

“I get it. Though Giles sounded pretty worried. Eventually he’ll remember you have a cell phone. You might want to turn it off.” He paused. “What was that fight you had with him? Is this something to do with that?” 

“Yeah,” Buffy said, pressing buttons on her phone. “And it’s fine. I just don’t want to go home until after my birthday.” 

“That’s fair,” Oz said. “Have a good day. And Spike?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Be a gentleman.” 

“Impossible,” Spike said, but he looked like he understood. 

Oz left, and Buffy cracked open a water and settled down to eat her bacon and eggs. Spike sucked noisily on his bag of blood. 

“Is that actually any fun?” Buffy asked. 

Spike pinched the bag shut with his thumb and forefinger. “Not like taking it from a body, no. But it’ll do.” 

“What is that, anyway?” 

“Pig. Not bad, pig’s pretty close to human. Why do you think they call you long pork?” 

“Ew.” 

“Hey, it’s other humans who call you that, not vampires.” 

“Cannibals haven’t been around in, like, a hundred years.” 

“You’d be surprised,” Spike said, and went back to his blood. 

Buffy felt much, much better after she’d eaten something, though she didn’t finish the whole carton. She folded it back up and shoved it onto the dashboard, then set about managing more water. 

“Now you can drink more,” Spike said. 

“Now I can drink more,” Buffy agreed, and finally accepted the bottle of whiskey he’d been pressing at her. 

They spent the rest of the day in the back of the DeSoto, drinking and playing cards, since Spike had like ten decks buried in the rubble at their feet. They turned sideways on the seat with their legs entwined as they played Gin Rummy. Buffy never let herself get quite as drunk as she had the night before, but she never properly sobered up, either. Finally the drink and the laziness of the day caught up with her, and she grabbed her pea jacket which she shoved under her head, and fell asleep in the back of the steamy car. 

Spike lay awake, his legs meshed with hers, staring at her as the sun went down. The car reeked of her, his own clothes were steeped in her, he’d tasted her blood that morning. Her heart kept beating, beating, beating, and she breathed out more of her scent every second. 

No wonder Angel had leapt for Dru at the first opportunity. Wanting this slayer was enough to drive any vampire stark-staring. Spike played one-handed solitaire and stopped drinking for a while. His eyes kept being drawn to the sleeping slayer. 

The sun went down, and Buffy woke quite suddenly. “Where are we?” she asked. 

“Still on the bluff,” Spike said. 

“And no one came to tell us to move?” 

“Well, a warden or someone came by before sunset and said we should move along,” Spike said. “I talked him out of it.” 

“Talked?” Buffy asked. 

Spike vamped up and hissed behind his teeth. Buffy chuckled. The light was dim. “Is it sunset?” 

Spike let his fangs go down. “Sun’s gone. Twilight still.” 

“Want to go for a walk on the beach?” 

Spike blinked, but shrugged. “I’m game.” 

They went out and Spike found a way down the bluff despite the dim light. Buffy stopped to take her shoes off, despite the cold, and Spike decided to, as well. The water shone slightly with bioluminescence, particularly where the waves crashed, and the moon, still slender, was rising behind them as they walked. It was peaceful and beautiful, and Spike wished Drusilla was there to enjoy it with. He would have loved to catch her up and run down the sand with her, or dance her in circles, or kiss her under the stars. All he had was the slayer… who smelled really damn good. 

“Spike,” she said, breaking the silence. “I need you to not tell anyone the things I said earlier. About my killing Stiles.” 

“I didn’t figure you wanted it shouted about.” 

“No, but you really can’t,” Buffy said. “Those suckers I let at her? I killed them later. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but I did it, because I couldn’t let anyone know what I’d done.”

“I don’t think locking someone up with vampires counts as a crime under any statutes of American law,” Spike said. “They’d have to admit we existed first.” 

“It’s not the police I’m worried about, it’s the watchers. If they found out, if Travers found out, they’d kill me.” 

“Who’s Travers?” 

“Head of the council. He’s the one who manages the wetworks teams and things. He hand-picked Wesley to be my watcher this time. He manages every part of my life, even though I’ve only seen him like twice.” 

Spike walked along in silence beside Buffy for a while. The sand felt soft underfoot, and the wind threw the slayer’s hair back in the moonlight. Sometime during the last day it had come mostly loose from its tight braid. He wanted to brush it aside and… he didn’t know. Probably sink his fangs into her throat. “I don’t have anyone to tell.”

“I don’t want to die because the watchers decide they don’t want me to be their slayer,” Buffy said. “It’s part of the shape of the universe that I’m killed by the monsters I slay. I’ve accepted that. But it shouldn’t be because some humans decide I’m just not slayery the right way.” 

“No,” Spike said. “It’s absolutely not right that you get killed by a bunch of humans.” Would be a crime. Some vampire deserved to kill the slayer, preferably Spike and Spike alone. 

“So you agree?” 

Spike took in a breath of the sea air. “What makes you think you can trust me?” 

Buffy hesitated. “You don’t tell anyone about my killing, and I won’t tell anyone about your crying.” 

Everyone important already knew he was a weeper. Angelus, Drusilla, they knew. But he took the offer. “Deal.” 

“Okay,” Buffy said. They continued to walk down the beach. Spike felt the impulse to take her hand, which was bollocks, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and tried to think of something to say. 

The sound that actually came up, though, was a grumble from Buffy’s stomach. “You hungry, slayer?” 

“It’s hard to tell with all the booze I drank,” Buffy said. 

“Well, we can’t have that. Let’s go feed you up,” Spike said, turning them around. “I know this great fish and chip shop up north. Always go there when I want a bit of a nosh.”

“We’re not hunting out a victim!” Buffy said. 

“I meant fish, not blood,” Spike said. “It’s a great place, does it Brit style. Worth the drive out of Sunnydale.” 

“You go out and eat fish and chips?”

“Why not? You go out for steak sometimes and salad another. I like my variations like everyone else.” 

“What, co-ed or biker?” 

Spike shook his head. “Here you try to be a gentleman.” 

“No, no, I’m intrigued. What does a vampire’s favorite restaurant look like?”

“Looks like a dive, tastes like a dream,” Spike said. 

They talked about popular TV shows while they headed back to the car. Buffy was, of course, two years out of date, and claimed she’d been too busy for TV since she’d been called, but they found a mutual awareness of _Beverly Hills, 90210,_ which Spike claimed he only watched to laugh at, and Buffy recognized now as being a little silly. Of course, she’d been fifteen and an LA girl herself, so she’d taken it deadly serious at the time. They chattered and laughed about that until they found their shoes -- no mean feat in the dark, but vampire eyes helped there -- and then Spike helped her back up the bluff, and they took off for the fish and chip shop.

It was called Nettie’s Net, and it was a hole in the wall. Literally. There were no seats inside, and you made your order at a counter in a room the size of a closet. The food was made behind the wall, and was handed to you in a greasy paper bag. But when Buffy took a bite in the car, she groaned. “Dear god, this is positively sinful. I can feel my arteries screaming at me to stop.” 

“You see why I like it, then?” Spike said. 

Buffy dipped her cod into tartar sauce to get the full effect and looked over at Spike. “Until I knew you, I didn’t know vampires ate food, either,” she said. “You’re like some human hybrid.” 

“Take that back,” Spike said. 

“Didn’t mean to offend.” 

“There’s just a lot of preconceptions. Coffins and strict blood and that bollocks about us not being able to fuck. We can fuck.” 

“Yeah, I noticed.” 

“We just don’t all bother with it, just like not all humans do. And as for the food, we _need_ the blood. We don’t _need_ the food. I just happen to like it.” He crammed a handful of chips into his mouth. 

“Is there any more beer?” Buffy asked. 

“I think we drank it all. I was more concerned with getting drunk hard and fast when I hit that store. Want to hit a bar?” 

“Not the way you hit that store,” Buffy said. “But yeah, I’d like a beer.” 

“I can find one of them,” Spike said. “When will you be ready to get back to Sunnydale?” 

Buffy looked at the time on her phone. “Not until after midnight,” she said. “Though I suppose if the watchers decided they really wanted me to go through my Cruciamentum twice, they could just drug me up tomorrow.” 

“Why would they do it twice?” 

“They were supposed to do it on my birthday, but I’d gone through so many watchers my records got mixed up, and they took one of the screwy state records for my birthday. They tried to kill me, and they didn’t even get the date right. Maybe they want to make up for it now.” 

“Maybe they would,” Spike said. “A little girl’s easier to control than a grown woman.” He glanced over at her. “Tell you what. If they do drug you up and lock you up with a vampire, I’ll kill them all for you, how’s that sound?” 

“You’ve got a geas.” 

“I can get around it.”

“How’s about this. You let me out, and _I_ kill them all.” 

“That’d be fun to watch. Deal.” Spike pulled into the parking lot of an open bar, and Buffy dug out her fake ID. 

They got a pitcher of beer, Spike bought out the jukebox with songs that were at least thirty years old, and they settled down to play pool. Buffy didn’t know the game, but her instincts for physical geometry were brilliant -- can’t throw a stake and hit a vampire without knowing how things roll -- so it turned out they were evenly matched once she learned the rules. 

They stayed until closing time, and Spike turned to her as they got back in the car. “You ready to go home?” 

“Yeah, I’ll go back to the house now,” Buffy said. “It’s officially not my birthday. I’m as safe as I’m going to be. What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you ready to face them yet?” 

Spike took in a deep breath and considered this. The fact that the deep breath consisted of heady slayer scent was a little distracting. “I guess I’ll find out when I get there,” he said. He looked down. “I’ll see if she’ll take me back.” 

“You were the one who was wronged, here.” 

Spike shrugged. “And I’m the one who has to decide if that matters more than her.” He glanced over at Buffy. “It doesn’t.” 

Buffy frowned into the night. “Seems wrong, somehow.” 

“It is wrong, Buffy,” Spike said. “We’re wrong. Everything right in us was eaten up and turned evil.”

“Your loyalty doesn’t seem eaten up at all.”

A ghost of a smile kissed Spike’s lips. “Well. I’ll guess we’ll see how that plays out with Dru, then, won’t we?” 

They got back to the house and drove into the garage. The house lights were blazing. They were not going to be able to sneak in unobtrusively. “This’ll be a picnic,” Spike said. 

“Well, thanks, Spike,” Buffy said, gathering her coat. “This was a nice date.” She bent over and kissed his cheek. 

He sputtered to cover up his confusion. Her lips had been very soft. “Date? You kidnapped me!”

Buffy laughed. “Best kind of date, then,” she said, and she slipped out of the car.


	19. Back to Reality

Angel continued to pace the living room with worry. This was all his fault. First he’d let himself be seduced by Drusilla, and then he teased Buffy about her jealousy, driving her out of the house. He was supposed to protect her, and instead he’d driven her away. Possibly driven her to her death, since it had been over twenty-four hours since they’d heard any word of her. If they found her, he was going to have to make it up to her. Somehow. Some way. 

Larry and Oz had gone home some hours before, but Giles was still here, and Anyanka hadn’t gone to bed. Only Oz had seemed unworried, saying Buffy would probably be back when she was ready, but he wouldn’t explain why he thought that, leaving everyone else to simmer through the course of the day. They’d even gone on a search for her, but had had no luck.

Angel was so agitated he missed the sound of the car returning. It was only when the back door opened and Spike and Buffy came in that Angel knew they were back. Angel dove for the kitchen, where Anyanka was already dealing with the dishes from Giles’s cups of recuperative tea. Giles followed. “Buffy and Spike are back,” Anyanka called out unnecessarily. 

“Buffy,” Giles asked. “Are you all right?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She hung her coat up by the door. “I just didn’t want to be home on my birthday. Do you understand that?” 

Giles looked down. “Yes, I do. May I speak with you?” 

Buffy sighed, glanced at Spike, and then followed Giles into the dining room. Angel looked at Spike. He didn’t like the look she’d given him, communicating some message that only they shared. How long had they spent together? What had they done? Spike was steeped in Buffy. She was on his clothes, in his hair, on his skin. The only thing that Angel could say saved him was the fact that he did not, in fact, smell of sex. “What did you do with her?” 

Spike just looked tired. “I don’t answer to you.” 

Angel grabbed Spike by the shirt. “I said, what did you do with her?”

A belligerent look passed over Spike’s face. “What? Moonlit walks by the beach. Romantic candlelight dinner. Sweet, passionate kisses by lamplight.” 

“You’re despicable.” 

“So what, Daffy? Slayer can do what she wants.” He punched Angel’s hands off his clothes. “So can I. You’ve got nothing to say.” 

“Buffy?” Anyanka called out. Sounded like she didn’t like the fight that was brewing, but Angel couldn’t care. 

“She smells of liquor,” Angel pressed. “Have you been taking advantage?” 

“Maybe she’s been taking advantage of me, ever thought of that?” Spike rearranged his coat. 

Angel had a sneaking suspicion that he was making an ass of himself, but he was finding it hard to step back. He'd known what he’d done, he'd known there would be consequences, but he hadn’t thought these would be them. Buffy running away, into Spike’s arms. “If you ever hurt her….”

“You’re in no position to be issuing threats at me, mate,” Spike said. “You forget she was the slayer? If I ever hurt the bint, she’d break me long before you came into the picture to avenge her.” He took a step forward. “Besides. It’d be worth it. She tastes like sunshine and honey.” He licked his teeth. 

Angel reached out to shove him, but Spike got there first, delivering a heavy punch to Angel’s jaw. Angel retaliated, backhanding Spike into the kitchen island. Anyanka called for Buffy again just as Spike kicked out and blasted Angel’s knee. Spike was coming for him with his fist raised when Buffy came back into the room, Giles trailing behind her. She pushed between the fighting vampires. “Okay, not here,” she said, a hand on each of their black shirts. She glared at Spike. “You promised, not here!” 

“Then get him out of here!” Spike yelled. 

“I will. I’ll talk to him, okay?” She glanced at Angel. “Is Drusilla downstairs?” 

“Uh… yeah,” Angel said. 

“Spike? Why don’t you go handle that?” 

Spike stood himself up from his fighting crouch and then pushed past Angel to head to the basement. The door clicked neatly behind him, and Buffy turned to Angel. “What are you doing?”

“He was telling lies about you.” 

“So?”

“So, I couldn’t let him do that.” 

“Are you, like, twelve? What’s it matter to you _what_ Spike says? He can say what he likes, I don’t care.” 

“He says you kissed him.” 

“Yeah, and?” 

That startled Angel. “You can’t mean he’s telling the truth?” 

“What’s it matter if he is? It’s got nothing to do with you.” 

“It does, Buffy. If my actions ran you off, drove you to… him--”

“Your actions? Wait.” She took a step back. “You think this thing has _anything_ to do with you?” She rolled her eyes with a small laugh and then sighed. “Fine. Angel? You can go fuck yourself instead of someone else’s girlfriend.” She turned her back on him and went back with Giles to the other room.

“I don’t think she cares about you,” Anyanka said brightly. 

“What do you know?” Angel asked. 

“I know you never had a real chance,” Anyanka said. “Not in this universe. And you’ve got even less of one now.” 

“I just wanted….” 

“What you thought you were entitled to,” Anyanka said. “I know this about men. But she’s got lots of things going on in her head, and she’s too experienced to swallow what you’re selling.” 

“Oh, but Spike?” Angel asked. “She’ll buy it from him?” 

Anyanka shrugged. “I don’t think Spike’s selling anything.” 

***

He was shining with sunlight. She could see her seeping through her baby’s flesh, burning through his blood. He didn’t even know it yet, but he was burning, burning. He was ashes. Drusilla caressed her raven and let it peck at her hands, because it wasn’t, after all, a tame bird. 

“You’re glowing,” she told him. 

He looked sad as an orphaned child. Perhaps he was. “Did you get him out of your system yet?” he asked. 

Dru let her raven go, and it flapped across the room to land on the shelf by the window. It cawed peevishly and pecked at a box. 

“Why are you so sad, my love?” she asked. 

“I’m not sad,” he lied to her. “I’m bloody furious. Was it Angel who nursed you back to health? Was it Angel who stayed with you and hunted for you and found you your cure? No. That was me, Dru. That was me!” 

“It’s in your nature,” Drusilla said. “Like the pain is in his. He’ll mope and sulk and brood over it. It’s so easy to hurt him now.” 

Spike took a step forward. “That’s what you were doing? Hurting him?” He shook his head. “Didn’t look like that to me.” 

“You don’t know what hurt looks like, to a soul,” Drusilla said. Hurt looked like bleeding in the night. She came up to Spike and put her arm around his shoulder. “What it looks like to me.” 

He pushed her off. “Dru, how am I supposed to face this? If it was anyone but Angel, pet. But Angel! Souled-up, right-headed, white hat Angel? How can you let him touch you?” 

“There’s a sanctity in the taste of corruption,” Drusilla said. “Don’t you find that?”

“Dru, we’re supposed to be together,” Spike said. He hadn’t heard her. Well, he didn’t always. “You and me, against the world. What do I need to do to prove myself to you?” 

He wanted a quest? A fine knight would always ask his beloved for a quest. Fortunately, she had one ready. “What do you think?” She turned to him and told him to do what she knew he could not, would not do. “Kill the slayer.” 

Spike took in a breath, sounding more annoyed than disturbed. At least there was that. “We can’t do it yet, pet, all right? Just a few more steps, and we can lift this geas, then we can do whatever we want.”

“But you agreed to the ropes in the first place,” Drusilla snapped. “You tied my hands, you made me her puppet!” 

He threw up his hands. “It’s just for a little while! It was just until we found your cure.” He grew smaller again, and his voice weakened with it. “‘Sides, Angel wanted you to swear, too. How can you be angry with me and not him?” 

“I am angry with him,” Drusilla said. “I can’t make him happy, but I can make him _hurt_. Why do you think I hungered so for his guilt-tainted touch?”

“And now you got it, are you satisfied?” Spike said. “Are we done now? Can we go back to what we were? No more carrying on, no more Angel, just you and me, pet? We agreed to just you and me.” 

“You agreed,” Drusilla said. “My Angel needs me still.”

“He doesn’t love you,” Spike said. “I don’t think he even likes to look at you. You can’t think he cares what happens to you.” 

“He cares. That’s part of his torment. Holy water wouldn’t sear him as deeply as I can.”

“And that’s all you want from him? To hurt him?” 

“Would you rather I hurt you?” she asked. She smiled at the look on his face. Oh, she had hurt him already. It was heavenly. “I can hurt you both.” 

“That’s what this is about, is it?” Spike said. “Punishing me for trying to find your cure.” 

“There’s so much to punish, Spike,” Drusilla said. “It’s inevitable.” 

“What is?” Anger was finally in his tone now. “What more can I do, love? What’s it _take?_ ” 

Drusilla looked down. He wouldn’t believe her. He couldn’t even see yet, what was obvious from looking into his eyes. One step, two steps, and he still thought he could hold himself on the hill, but he was already falling, down and down and down, he just couldn’t see it. “You’re not lost yet,” she told him. “When you kill her, then I’ll believe it. But not until then.” 

“You’re telling me I have to kill the slayer before you’ll take me back?” 

Drusilla narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“Of course it is!” Spike said. “But we have to lift this damned spell first. Until then, I have to work with her, you know I do!” 

“Then we’ll wait to see to which side you’ll jump. Jump up, roll down, and Jack and Jill will break their crowns.” 

“Dru,” Spike said. He came up and touched the side of her face. “I’m forgiving you, here. Can’t you see that?” 

She almost spat at him. “Forgive?” She grabbed his hand and dug her nails into his knuckles. “To forgive isn’t in the quest. I don’t ask you to forgive, I ask you to kill!” 

Spike knocked her arm away and grabbed her. “Are you going to make me _take_ you back, Dru? You’re better now, I can do it! I can make you love me.” 

“Try it,” Drusilla said, hoping he would. Hoping he would abandon the good will of the slayer and her ilk, hoping he would risk Angel’s wrath, hoping he’d hurt her beautifully and force her into loving him like her daddy did once. Spike grabbed her hair and forced her into a kiss, but she didn’t fall into it. He tasted of the slayer. She had already tainted his lips. He would have to push himself back into the evil, force himself onto her, let her scream, before she’d believe he’d really abandoned the light that was shining through him now. 

But he couldn’t hold it, as she’d known he couldn’t. He stopped forcing her, looking deep into her eyes, and let her go with disgust. He always wanted to be wanted, did Spike, and forcing was not his favorite game. He wasn’t strong enough for it now. 

Drusilla shook her head. “You have your chance, pet,” she said. “When you can kill her, then I’ll know how you taste. See if I can stomach you again.” 

“I did nothing bloody wrong here!”

“That doesn’t change the way you taste,” Drusilla said. “Or the way she’s gnawed into my Angel. She needs to die.”

Spike sighed. “And that’s all I have to do? Kill the slayer?” 

“Thought that was what you wanted, Spike.” 

“And Angel?” 

“He’s too full up to see me clear,” Drusilla said. 

“But that won’t stop you from shagging him again, will it?” 

“Oh, poor puppy,” Drusilla said then. She came forward and took his head in her hands, bending him down to rest on her shoulder. “You don’t see what’s going on here. She will die. I’ll see her die. And then we’ll know where everyone stands.”

“I love you, Dru,” Spike whispered. “Don’t make me prove it. Haven’t I already proved it?” 

“When she’s dead,” Dru said to him. “Then we’ll know.”

“I need you,” Spike breathed. 

“I’m still here,” she said, and she let him catch her up and take her to the bed, but she pulled away from his kisses, and wouldn’t let his wicked hands caress her. Finally he grabbed onto her with a proprietary embrace and went to sleep. 

The raven flew back across the room and hopped onto the perch in its cage. 

***

“I just really didn’t want to be home,” Buffy said. “I’m not a prisoner.” 

Giles and Buffy had been trying to talk this out for some time now, but they hadn’t gotten any further than “You really shouldn’t worry us like that,” and “I had every right” before Spike and Angel’s little tiff had to be refereed by Buffy. 

Finally Angel and Anyanka went upstairs, Anyanka saying she was finally getting to bed. Angel just gave Buffy one of those searching looks he always gave her before retreating to his own room. Now Giles had to figure out exactly what to say to placate a traumatized slayer whom he did not strictly have authority over, but whom he had taken responsibility for, nonetheless. 

“Buffy, I… I want to tell you that you truly had nothing to fear from me. First of all, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce was convinced you were already eighteen, and thus had no interest in attempting a second Cruciamentum.” 

“Well, bully for his morals,” Buffy said with dripping sarcasm. 

“Secondly, I wanted to tell you that I’ve done a bit of soul-searching -- and a bit more research into the practice. It’s extremely old, older than any other watcher records I could find. Thousands of years. I can’t even get into the direct source material.” 

“And that’s supposed to give the thing gravitas?” 

“No,” Giles said. “It makes the thing a relic of a bygone era which should have been done away with under any civilized order. I intend to back a petition to see it abolished.” 

“You? An ex-watcher with no standing in the council? You’re going to see that a thousand year old tradition they’ve been clinging to because it helps them control the slayers will be abandoned, just like that?” 

“I have many friends in the Watchers Council, and my father knew people as well. I am certain that my arguments will fall on receptive ears.” 

“You have a lot more faith in the watchers than I do, buddy,” Buffy said. “Good luck with that.” 

Giles reached out for her arm, stopping her with a light touch. “Buffy, please. I realize I’ve done nothing to earn your trust, but if you could just bear with me….”

“Giles… the watchers don’t care about me,” Buffy said. “They’re not going to abolish the Cruciamentum, and they’re not going to let me go. I’m their slave. I just wanted one day where I could pretend I was just me, and in order to have that, I needed to run away for a little bit. Can’t you understand that?” 

“I can,” Giles said. “Which is why I lied to Mr. Wyndam-Pryce about your excursion.” 

Buffy stared at him. “Wes knows?” She threw up her arms. “Why didn’t you just call Travers and tell him I was AWOL, so they could send in their fire-arms experts to gun me down! I told you I’d be back.”

“You did not in fact, Buffy,” Giles said. 

“I said I wasn’t patrolling for two nights. Not that I’d abandoned my calling! And now the Watchers know? My god, Giles! I was trusting you.” 

“I needed to see if you had called him, Buffy. I didn’t tell him you were missing.” 

That calmed Buffy down. “You didn’t?” 

“No. I only asked him if you had checked in lately. When he said no I gave him a brief report of our current mission. He suggested that we proceed. So the watchers are expecting that now. Nothing else.” 

“Proceed?” 

“You wanted to infiltrate the Mayor’s office and see if he was indeed in possession of a talisman to get through the misdirection spell to Willow.”

“Oh… well, I don’t know if he _does_ have a talisman. It just seemed logical to check….”

“Then we will check,” Giles said. “And I will tell your Wes that you are performing as an exemplary slayer. There will be no one on your back.”

“Well… thanks,” Buffy said. “I guess that’s all right.” 

“Do you really think the watchers would shoot you down?” Giles asked. 

“If they can lock me up with a vampire without my powers, what else would they be willing to do?” Buffy said. “I looked it up, when I was still laid up from the broken ribs. Most of the slayers were killed by vampires or other demons. But every once in a while one of the records will say the slayer turned _hostile_ , and then her record just stops. Another one takes up her mantle. It happens all the time, Giles. If the slayer doesn’t kowtow to the watchers, they kill her.”

“You can’t know that’s what happened.” 

“You’re still drinking the Kool-Aid,” Buffy said. “Whatever. I’ll call Wes myself, let him know I’m still working, still doing what the watchers want of me. I can’t have them thinking I have thoughts of my own.” 

Giles was troubled. “You do… want to be the slayer, don’t you?”

Buffy frowned at him. “Throw myself into danger every night? Give up any hope at a life or a home or a family? Forget shopping and holidays and friends in exchange for blood and violence? What made you think I’d want that?” 

“The few girls I knew, when I explained about what being called would mean, they seemed excited. Athletic powers they could barely imagine. Exciting trips around the world. Doing something meaningful for society.” 

“Yeah, that all meant something to me,” Buffy said. “When I still thought the watchers had my back, and really wanted me to succeed. I don’t think that anymore. Now I’m probably better use to them dead, and I have to stay aware of that.” 

“Buffy--”

“The watchers have done nothing but take from me,” Buffy said. “My innocence, my powers, my body, they all took what they wanted. And anything that didn’t match? They had me carve off myself and throw away. I am what the watchers left of Buffy Summers. The vampires may have taken their share, but they were just hyenas eating the lion’s leftovers. It was the watchers who really killed me.” 

Giles looked at the dining room table. “I wish I had been your watcher,” he said, “so you wouldn’t feel like that about them.” 

“They’d only have corrupted you, too,” Buffy said. “And then you’d find something from me you wanted to take. Calling my mom, trying to get me into school, that’s all very sweet of you, Giles. But you can’t make up for what they’ve done to me. Once a slave knows it’s a slave, all they want is to be free.”

Giles hated that. He hated that Buffy thought of herself as a slave. He hated that that made him a kind of a slaver. And he hated that she was probably right. 

Thousands of years ago, of course, such a relationship was perfectly in keeping with the society of the time. A young girl, enslaved under the auspices of older men, a victim who was otherwise considered worthless and thus expendable. A headman wouldn’t be at risk from the vampires, or a priest, or a chief. No. They would send a young woman. Not useful in the fields, not useful to lead, only useful for her body, and that can be used by the men in between sending her off to battle for them. Yes, Buffy was probably correct in her appraisal of the relationship between slayers and watchers. 

It didn’t make Giles feel any better about his choices. He’d been hoping to rejoin the watchers, since he had been doing Wyndam-Pryce’s work for him. Now he realized that would have been seen by Buffy as selling out to them. The great library and the watchers' resources were tempting, but not at the cost of Buffy’s respect. 

“You deserve to be free,” Giles said. “But I cannot end your sacred calling. With or without the watchers, slayers are drawn toward evil. Evil is drawn toward them. It’s destiny. The watchers… they do what they can to help.” 

“Well, that’s not how it works,” Buffy said. “But it’s nice that you think that. I’ll take what help you can give me. But Travers, Wesley, Stiles? They never cared if I died. You should take their example. I’m a slave with a death-sentence pending, and if you’re on the side of the watchers, you have to be a-okay with that.”

“And if I’m not?” 

Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know. But that makes you kinda not a watcher.” 


	20. Town Hall

  
  


Buffy leaned into the corner and felt the weight shift behind her as Spike leaned into it, too. She was finding it extremely distracting to have Spike’s crotch rubbing up against her behind as they rode her Kawasaki to the Town Hall.

The sad truth was, her birthday had been the best day of her life since long before she’d been chosen. And that was due to Spike. It wasn’t that she’d never run away from her responsibilities and gotten drunk before. She’d just never had a chance to share that with anyone so open and disinterested and ready to just let her _be_ before. Spike wanted nothing from her but what she was already giving him. If he pissed her off, she could hit him, and he didn’t take it as a personal affront. And yes, he was an ass, but he was a _fun_ ass, humming ditties under his breath and just not caring about all the bullshit in the world. 

No. None of that meant he was a good guy. But Buffy… well, she wasn’t good, either. She was the slayer. She sort of bypassed good in order to get to destroying the actual evil. And even if Spike technically was evil… well….

Why not?

It had come to her last night, as she was going to bed. It might not have come to her at all had she been allowed to just go to sleep and face her responsibilities in the morning, but that wasn’t to be. Angel had stopped Buffy in the hallway on the way to her bedroom. He’d been lurking there, waiting for her, like a spider. Like a predator. “And what do you want?” 

“Buffy,” Angel said. “I just, I wanted to make sure you really were all right.” 

“Yes,” she said, annoyed. “I’m fine. I was always fine. Uh-oh, the slayer slipped her collar for the day, got to call in the dogcatchers.”

“We were just worried about you,” Angel said. 

“Worried about me? Or worried I wasn’t doing exactly what you all wanted me to do?” 

Angel came closer to her, and there was only concern on his face, a sort of paternalistic concern which creeped her out, considering what he claimed he’d wanted from her. Of course, a guy who would fuck his own daughter-equivalent while her husband-equivalent was gonna walk in any moment probably would have a paternalistic interest in whoever he wanted to fuck. Ugh. 

“Buffy, did Spike do anything to hurt you?” 

“What?” 

“His scent is pretty strong on your clothes.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I can take care of myself! I don’t need you setting up a shotgun wedding because me and Spike got drunk on a cliff.” 

“You… were drinking,” Angel said. 

“Yeah… and?” 

“Are you sure you should do that, Buffy? I mean….” He gestured to her. “You are underage.” 

“And facing death every night! So I’m old enough to die, but not to drink?” She shook her head. Why was she even talking to him? “Angel, go back to your room and stop fucking everything up.”

“Look, I know you wouldn’t even have been out if it hadn’t been for me--”

“No. _Spike_ wouldn’t have been out drinking if it hadn’t been for you. Your inability to keep it in your pants had fuck-all to do with what I did.”

“Buffy… you didn’t want me. What was I supposed to do?” 

“Hm. Not fuck someone else’s girlfriend. Is that so hard for a vampire to do?”

“It’s not as if I did some real vampire-worthy evil here--”

“No,” Buffy said. “What that soul seems to give you is ample opportunity to do some very _human_ evils. Like stalk underage girls and fuck other people’s girlfriends and lie a lot. None of that requires fangs, but it does take some fucking ego.” 

“Like you can say anything! You ran off with Spike!” 

Buffy was about to protest that she hadn’t run off with Spike to have sex with him, but she stopped. “You know, what does it matter if I _did_ run off with Spike? Spike’s a funny, fun, devoted guy who knows how to treat a woman.”

“Buffy, he’s a vampire!”

“You’re a vampire. What’s the difference?” 

“There’s a world of difference! He’s evil!”

“And you’re not?” Buffy asked. “What have you done that is so unevil?”

“You know what I was doing. I was helping Giles. I was waiting for you.”

“But how is that unevil? You wanted something out of it.” 

“Spike would still be killing if it wasn’t for this geas,” Angel said. “I stopped killing a century ago.” 

“Do you want a cookie?” Buffy asked. “Ooh, I didn’t kill anyone this week, yay for me. How the fuck does that make you good, when any sucker worth his blood can say he _didn’t_ kill someone, and isn’t that so sweet of me? If you think I could be with you, why _not_ Spike?”

“If you could be with Spike, why not me?” Angel countered. 

“Because I don’t like you.” She turned to go. 

Angel reached out and took her arm, stopping her. “Buffy,” he said. “You can’t just dismiss this so easily.” 

Buffy held onto her temper quite well, she thought. “Take your hand off me,” she said low.

Angel seemed to realize he’d gone too far. He released her. “I thought you could make me be better,” he said quietly. 

“That’s your job, not mine.” She turned away from him and into her room. 

She heard a crash from Angel’s room after she closed her door. He’d broken something. Maybe she should feel sorry for him in his impossible crush, but she really couldn’t. She supposed that destiny thwarted might make anyone feel like they should break the furniture. Of course, her destiny was thwarted, too. She was supposed to be someone different, someone who wanted what Angel was offering. So why wasn’t she? 

She slipped back out of her room and knocked gently on Anyanka’s door. “Anyanka? Are you asleep yet?” 

She heard a groan, then, “No.” A light came on from under Anyanka’s door, so Buffy took that as an invitation to come in. Her door was unlocked -- clearly Anyanka didn’t feel as worried about sharing a home with vampires as Buffy did. (Or was it just sharing a home with stalkery Angel that was creeping Buffy out? She wondered. No. No, Drusilla was pretty damn creepy, too.) 

She opened the door to Anyanka’s room, which looked about halfway between Buffy’s and Angel’s in decor. Anyanka hadn’t a base she could raid for artwork and furniture, but she’d been pretty resourceful. Buffy recognized side tables that had been put by the side of the road from Sunnydale-fleeing residents, and her mattress was up on a second-hand Hollywood frame, which kept it off the ground, at least. Other than that she had decorated with hanging fabric, pictures from magazines of organized, together looking people -- mostly professional women, but some couples -- and her clothes seemed hung on the back of the closet door as if the outfits themselves were decorative. It looked like a college dorm rather than a military closet. She didn’t know why, but leaving her room empty and bare seemed embarrassing to Buffy suddenly, as if she’d committed some kind of personal faux pas. There was a time she would have scattered butterfly decals and pictures of her friends and posters from boy bands, but she hadn’t done more than change the sheets in that empty room since she’d gotten there. Though there was a stake under her mattress; she wasn’t stupid. She had decorated a _little_ , if that counted. 

“Is there a problem?” Anyanka asked, sitting up on her bed.

“No, not really. Just… I’ve been meaning to ask you. I mean, I know it’s late and all, but--” 

“That means whatever you have to ask me is important,” Anyanka said.

Buffy sat down on the bed. “What do you remember from that other world? The one this one is supposed to be?”

“Oh,” Anyanka said. She looked embarrassed. “I thought you were going to ask me this before. I thought you’d forgotten by now.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“I _hoped_ you’d forgotten,” Anyanka said. “Because I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help. You've got to understand, I was only in Sunnydale like three days before Cordelia’s wish took, and everything switched. I mostly only knew what Cordelia knew, and the rumors about her and her friends. Which means that what I know of you is… limited.”

“Well, what _did_ you know? What was the other world like in general?” 

“Well, there were a lot fewer people dead. The school was more full. But there were some people who were dead who aren’t now, and some people who I don’t know about, because I didn’t see them. Like… there was no Spike or Drusilla. I never heard about them. I suppose they might have existed somewhere, but they weren’t here in Sunnydale.” 

“Okay. Um. What-- what about Angel?”

“Cordelia and Harmony and the others did talk about you,” Anyanka said. “They said you had this mysterious older boyfriend, but they thought you’d broken up. Some of them thought he might have died. But there were all kinds of rumors about him. Like he sent you a magic trick one year, a friend of his pretended to light herself on fire in the middle of the school room after giving you a message.” 

“So… a newborn vampire immolated themselves in front of me. That’s romantic, sure.” 

“Cordelia seemed to be the only one who knew vampires even existed.”

“And yet she wished the slayer out of Sunnydale? That doesn’t sound very logical.”

“Women in pain aren’t very logical. She had been dating Xander, and Xander had been considered a loser before you came into town. Then he cheated on her with Willow -- just a kiss, but this is high-school stuff. I figured I’d come back to town and start small. I’d been doing freelance vengeance work, you know, going all over the world, and it had been a long time since I’d had a home base. Start with some teenage mistakes, move up to the frat boys, and then finally expand into adult vengeance at large. That was the _idea_ , anyway.” 

“So this is all because Xander the vampire kissed someone other than Cordelia?”

“He wasn’t a vampire at the time. And yes, he kissed Willow, in the other world, and Cordelia took offence.”

“So what’s that got to do with me?”

“Very little, but my job isn’t to judge the vengeance, it’s to carry it out. Cordelia banished you from Sunnydale’s past, and the rest, as they say, is history.” 

“So what changed? I mean apart from my never showing up, what…?”

“Well, I know you were assigned to Giles, so you would have only had him as your watcher since you got here.” 

“So… everyone I dealt with except Merrick.” 

“I guess. And then you were dating Angel, sort of off-again, on-again. I think you were on off-again.” 

“So, we weren’t happy-ever-after?” 

“Didn’t look like it, no. Cordelia didn’t seem to think so. I never laid eyes on Angel in the other world, just heard rumors about him.”

“Like what?” 

Anyanka shook her head. “Just that he made you miserable. You were not known as a happy girl. I mean, you looked happy when you were with your friends, but the rumor mill had you as a tragic figure with an older boyfriend who had screwed you over.” 

“So… if I had made him be better… it would have been at the cost of making me worse.” 

“I don’t know,” Anyanka said. “But I do know as a vengeance demon that any woman who told me a story about how some man said she was supposed to have made him _be better_ , it was a giant red flag and he always broke her heart when she no longer matched whatever ideal he had made her out to be. Usually springing from some Madonna/whore shit.” 

Buffy cuddled down next to Anyanka. “I don’t think I know how vengeance in dating works,” she said. “Cordelia’s wish seems to have everything to do with me, and nothing to do with Xander.” 

“Well, Xander did die,” Anyanka said. “He wasn’t considered cool in Sunnydale High anymore. It technically did what it was meant to do.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to protect your clients, though? I thought that’s what the whole deal was with the demonic soul and personal vendetta hurting humans?” 

“We’re supposed to protect them from the damage of performing vengeance, not from the vengeance itself. Vengeance can be a double edged sword. You can cut yourself as much as you cut your enemy. That’s not something we can change as demons. In fact, it can be very exciting.” Anyanka sighed. “This wish was _so_ exciting until Giles broke my amulet.”

“Maybe you can get it back?” 

“I don’t think so. Besides, wouldn’t you feel you need to kill me if I did?” 

Buffy frowned. “I don’t know anymore. Everything’s twisted.” She looked up. “If Spike wanted to perform a vengeance, what would you do for him?”

“I usually only performed vengeance for women,” Anyanka said. “And I have to let the wisher guide the wish. But if Spike was a woman and her girlfriend had fucked an old friend of theirs, I’d do whatever it took to make the girlfriend feel as bad as she made her lover do.”

“So if someone were to… I don’t know… fuck Spike, say… that would make Drusilla feel cheated on, and thus fulfill that vegeance?” 

“I don’t know what would have an effect on Drusilla. She’s a little hard to read. But it would fulfill the poetry of vengeance, yes.” She turned to Buffy with a bright look on her face. “Are you going to fuck Spike?” 

Buffy turned her head away. “No,” she said, but she didn’t sound convincing. 

“You are totally going to--”

“Keep your voice down!” Buffy said, holding her hand up. “Angel is just in that room.” 

“You are totally going to fuck Spike,” Anyanka whispered. 

“I don’t know. I wanted to earlier.” 

“What’s stopping you?” 

“Vampire.” 

“Why does that have to stop you?”

“Yeah, I’ve been… uh… thinking about that,” Buffy said. “I’m not supposed to fraternize with the enemy, really, unless I’m on a hunt, but….”

“But you are on a hunt,” Anyanka said. “We’re still hunting Willow and Xander, that’s a hunt, isn’t it?”

“Technically.” Buffy hugged herself. “I really, really want to,” she admitted. 

“Spike is _hot_ , and by the laws of vengeance he and Drusilla are technically broken up right now.” 

“Unless they’re making up as we speak,” Buffy said. 

“Well, yes, unless that,” Anyanka said. 

Buffy ran a hand through her hair, thinking of how Spike had brushed it aside the night before, just after she’d burst into tears over Stiles. She wanted more of that kind of treatment. It wasn’t fair that that creepy murdering vampiress downstairs got a loving boyfriend to tend to her and treat her well and call her _pet_ while Buffy always had to struggle alone. And it wasn’t as if shifting her affections to the very-willing Angel was going to get Buffy what she wanted. Angel didn’t seem capable of it even when he’d had two, three years practice. Besides… Angel had pissed her off and creeped her out and Buffy didn’t want him. Spike annoyed her, but that got her hot. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck. 

Which meant now, as she was riding her Kawasaki to the town hall with Spike wrapped around her like a vine, she was finding it very hard not to slide her ass back and wriggle. She pulled up outside the town hall, which still had lights blazing -- clearly the curfew did not extend to the civil servants. Either that, or…

“Those are vampires,” Spike said, squinting up through a window on the upper floor. 

“Huh?” Buffy had to take off her helmet to see what Spike was seeing. There were shadows on a curtain, but she couldn’t be sure they were human or not. “Are you sure?” 

“Ridge around the eye socket in silhouette,” Spike said. “I’m sure.” 

“The mayor hires vampires….”

“Well, a nice new minion will follow your orders to their death, if you’re strong enough, so yeah,” Spike said. “If I was running this town, I’d want vampire minions, too.” 

“Great.” The town hall was huge. “How old are you?”

“Old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth,” Spike said. 

“I mean, are you old enough to hold your own in a crowded town hall full of minion vampires?” 

“Fighting them? Don’t know, numbers can be a trick. But can I out-hear them, out-smell them? Sure, if they actually are younger than I am and the Mayor didn’t call in reinforcements more powerful than Willow. Do we still go in?” 

“Yes,” Buffy said. She lifted the Kawasaki and turned it so they could leave quickly. “But we go in sort of stealthy-like.” 

They went to the front entrance of the town hall and tried the door, but of course it was locked. “I suppose we could… break a window….” Buffy said doubtfully. She didn’t want to draw attention. 

“If you stand guard, I can pick a lock.” 

“You carry lock picks?” 

“If Dru chained you up as often as she chains me, you’d carry lock picks, too. They’re in my boot.” 

“She chains you up while you’re wearing your boots?” 

Spike glared at her. “What?” 

“Just… thought it sounded more of a kinky, bedroom thing.” 

“When it’s that, she lets me go again. When she’s brassed off, she’ll keep me there. Just stand guard, will you?” He worked a couple of thin strips of metal out of the lining of his right boot and carefully inserted them into the door. 

It was not the work of a moment, or even two moments. It was the work of quite a while, and Buffy was getting worried they’d be spotted. “This is taking forever.”

“Do you want me to just push the door down? I can do that.” 

“That’s what I usually do, too,” Buffy confessed. 

“Woman after my own heart,” he said, making Buffy wince. She really had to get a hold of this… whatever it was. Then, “Ow!” 

“What is it?” 

Spike was shaking his left hand. “Pick bit me. Magical protection or whatnot.”

“Are you bleeding?” Buffy tried to grab his hand to look, but he snatched it away and held it up at her. There were no marks. 

“It was internal. But I think it might have stopped my heart if I’d been human. Went all the way through.” 

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “You’re telling me this place can only be broken into by vampires?”

Spike shrugged. “Goes to show you who the mayor worries about, and it’s not us. Well, not me, anyway.” They opened the door and went in, and then Spike grabbed her arm hard, and she nearly stumbled. “Keep your head down.”

“Why?” 

Spike pointed upward. “Camera.” 

Buffy glanced at it, then faced away. She dove behind a wall. “Shit. Do you think they got our faces?” 

“If it’s local, they may not even know we’re here. People tend to check the video cameras _after_ a break in, not during. Besides, we’re just looking.”

“But we’re going to have to go up to the inner sanctum or whatever the mayor’s office is. I don’t think Willow’s talisman thing is going to be down here with the secretary.” 

“Receptionist,” Spike said. “He’d have his own secretary.” 

“Whatever!” She glanced at the camera again with one eye. “What do we do?” 

“Act natural,” Spike said, “and you don’t look at the camera.” 

“You can be picked up on camera as well as I can.” 

“Yeah, and I’m pretty distinctive. They’ll already know me. They don’t know you.”

“Okay. Do you know where the mayor’s office is?” 

Spike walked over to an information board directory, and Buffy was glad he did it, because she would have had to stand directly in front of the camera to read it. “Mayor’s office, second floor, room 203.” 

“Stairs, I think.”

“Stairs.” 

They made it to the stairs, Buffy never once looking directly at a camera. The hall was bright and filled with lights, but all the walls were a sickly institutional green, and the place made her feel slightly ill. She made sure her stake was within easy grip. She could almost _smell_ vampires everywhere. She hadn’t felt so many together since the Master’s little party. In order to stop herself from wanting to break down every door and start slaying, she poked a little bit at Spike. Just to… see. 

“So, uh… what happened with Drusilla?” Their voices echoed in the stairwell. 

“Huh?” 

“Drusilla. You went down to make up with her?” He hadn’t volunteered any information, not even when Buffy came down to ask him to join her in this escapade this evening. He’d stayed down with Drusilla, though when Buffy had come down Dru wasn’t even looking at Spike. She’d taken to drawing on the walls with a piece of charcoal -- where she even got charcoal, Buffy wasn’t sure. She drew stick figures and women’s faces and the raven and sometimes just black smudges. Buffy didn’t feel like arguing with her, and clearly neither did Spike. Or Angel. If he’d even bothered to look at his lover after they’d broken Spike’s heart. “Even though you hadn’t done anything wrong,” Buffy added, annoyed for his sake. 

“Sure I did. Was inadequate, wasn’t I?”

“Inadequate? About what?” 

“It’s the geas. She doesn’t want to be under it, doesn’t want to have to work with you. She hates me for it.” He shrugged. “I was wrong.”

“You were saving her life! Would she be happier with you if she could kill while she was dying?” 

Spike looked uncomfortable. “She might be,” he said. “What Dru wants, she wants. What she wants, she takes. And now she feels locked up. It was okay when she was too weak to take, but now that she feels better, she resents it.” He sighed. “She resents me.” 

“So you’re saying she really can’t _understand_ that this geas was part of the deal to make her well.”

“I think she understands. She can’t care. Her mind switches so fast between past, present, future, that the _wanting_ is all that’s left of her.” He shook his head. “Truth, I’ve done the worst thing anyone could do to her. I made her think about the future.” 

“What’s so wrong with that?” 

“Nothing, for you and me. ‘S just a dream for us, an ambition. But to take her away from _now_ and make her think about all the _then_ , and then _then_ gets compounded by possibilities and visions and her own past with her own future. And compound that by whatever happened with Anyanka, she’s probably dealing with more than one _then_ , and by putting her in this geas I took away her _now_ completely.” 

Buffy wasn’t sure that made sense to her -- she wasn’t sure it made sense to Spike, entirely -- but she tried to understand. “She’s… overwhelmed?” 

“I don’t know,” Spike said. “All she knows is that _now_ she’s unhappy. No wonder she turned to Angel.”

“Yeah, but can Angel make her happy _now?_ ” 

“No, but he made her unhappy back _then._ So maybe if she’s with him _now_ she can make his _now_ miserable, too.” 

Buffy’s head was whirling. “Is that really the way she thinks?”

“When she thinks at all and doesn’t just feel. Yeah.” 

“Kind of a convoluted way to make him miserable.” 

“Well, does he seem happy?” 

Buffy remembered broken furniture in the night. “No. But only because I won’t roll over and lift my tail for him. Even less likely to do it now he’s fucked your girlfriend.” 

“There you are. She took him even further away from you. Dru won.” 

“But what about you?” Buffy asked. “How does she feel about you?” 

Spike looked down. “She just wants me unhappy, too. If she can’t kill and torture humans, she’s going to do it with us, in whatever way we let her.” 

“Do you… never want to hurt her back?” 

“I have in the past. But I’m not good at it. I’m a romantic.” 

“So you still want her?” 

He looked almost ashamed of himself. “I want her. She doesn’t want me right now.”

“So… you’re broken up?” 

“Until I prove myself to her. Yeah.” Spike pushed through a door and into the upper corridor. 

Buffy followed after him, frustrated. It didn’t seem right. “You shouldn’t have to prove yourself to a lover. They should just… love you.”

“She loves that I’m the kind of bloke who _would_ prove myself to her. Doesn’t that count?” 

“It just seems kind of…”

“What? Evil?” 

“Well, yeah.” 

“There you go, pet.” 

Buffy blushed. Damn, he was calling her pet. It _was_ cute, and it _did_ make her feel special, and fuck, but she had to get over this. “Where’s 203?” 

“Bet it’s the double doors down there.” 

“There anyone here?” 

“Don’t hear anything. And that knot of minions we saw was on the third floor.” 

“Okay.” Buffy went forward and tried the door to the mayor’s office, expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t. That was good? Maybe? But it suggested the mayor hadn’t gone home yet for the night, and that was worrisome. 

“Okay. We’re here.” The office was small, almost dowdy, though the mayor kept a lot of awards and certificates on his walls. There was the obligatory American flag, some odd looking patriotic sculptures, closed venetian blinds, some fake plants. It seemed soul-sucking. Though if Spike was right, the mayor had no soul to suck. “Do you smell anything with vampire blood on it?” 

“More than you can imagine,” Spike said. “Spots on the floors, on the walls, in the blinds.” 

“I don’t see any.” 

“A spot will disappear, and you can clean up and still leave traces. It’s everywhere.” 

“Well… shit!” Buffy threw up her hand. “Now what?” 

“Look harder,” Spike said. “I’ll check the drawers, you check that cabinet?” 

Buffy sighed and opened up the cabinet while Spike started rifling through the mayor’s desk. Buffy blinked as the cabinet doors swung wide. “Wow,” she said. “Okay. Definitely evil sorcerer.” 

“Yep,” he said. “Told you.”

The wall cabinet contained shrunken heads, weird skulls with marks on them, arcane weaponry, some ancient looking books Buffy was sure Giles would kill for -- or at least consider maiming for -- and, incongruously, an open box of baby wipes sitting prominently in the middle. “Is he sacrificing a baby?” Buffy asked.

Spike glanced up. “Nope. Well, maybe, there’s some human blood around in here, too. But the mayor’s a germaphobe. Every time he postured around me he was always wiping his hands.”

“This cabinet stinks,” Buffy said, peering into a box that seemed full of teeth. She closed the lid quickly. “Spike, you’re going to have to look in here. All this shit looks like it should have vampire blood on it.” 

Spike abandoned the mayor’s desk and went over to the cabinet. He shook his head. “Too many different smells from different demons. I can’t pick anything out.” 

“Well… shit!”

“It would help if you knew what you were looking for.” 

“I don’t _know_ what I’m looking for, we know that!” 

“Well, we wouldn’t have to be looking for anything at all if you hadn’t been such a liberal hand with the warlock staking.”

Buffy rounded on Spike, trying not to yell. “The warlock was evil! He attacked me!”

“The warlock had your number, and you knew it, and you didn’t like it, and you bashed him in the skull.” 

“I could bash you in the skull, you--”

“Quiet!” 

“I am allowed to insult you!” Buffy started, but Spike grabbed her mouth, pulling her closer. 

“Listen.” 

Buffy couldn’t hear anything, but Spike’s hand on her face was distracting, and fighting with him made her heart race. Spike’s hand lifted off her, and she whispered, “What is it?”

“Voices. Bugger, they’re coming.” 

Buffy ran for the other door in the room, but it was locked. She looked at the big cabinet, but it was too full of stuff. There was another door at the opposite side of the wall from the cabinet, and she seized its handle, but it was just a closet full of file boxes when it opened, and there was no way out. Spike was still trying the locked door. 

“Spike!” Buffy hissed. “Spike!” 

“Bloody thing won’t open, made to stop vampires -- what?” 

“Get over here!” 

Spike jumped to her, balked at the tiny space inside, but when the main door started to open he rolled his eyes and pulled Buffy in with him. 

“Have you made the preparations for the Scout Jubilee like I asked? Those kids deserve a good one,” said a voice. 

“That’s the mayor,” came a whisper of a breath into Buffy’s ear. The sound didn’t carry, but the feeling of his breath did, and Buffy shivered at how close it was. How close _he_ was. Her face was mashed right up against his tight pecs, his breathing disturbed her hair. She took in a deep breath and realized he had a scent. Not just when he was burning, that demonic incense that all vampires had so long as they bothered to wash, but something distinctly _him_. There were the cigarettes, and the leather, and the vampire, and a little bit of hair gel, and she found all those scents and categorized them, but there was another smell, not anything she’d identified before. It was what had tangled into her dreams when she forgot to change her pillow cases. It was another kind of smokey scent, like what Rack had said, a hot smoke, like a freshly struck match. She wanted to bury her nose in it. She wanted to bury her nose in _him_.

But she shouldn’t do that. He may have been _technically_ broken up with Drusilla, but in his heart he wasn’t, she knew he wasn’t, he was too damned loyal for that (and what was a vampire doing with that kind of loyalty, anyway?) and she didn’t want to be the cause for another betrayal, even though Spike had kind of earned a fling after what Dru and Angel did to him. But that didn’t matter, because it was wrong, and that didn’t matter, either, because he smelled good, and he felt good, and fuck this damned situation that had her pressed up against Spike’s beautifully chiseled chest, which was cool and beautiful as marble, except like he’d said before, he started to reflect her heat instead of draw it like marble would, so it was warm as a pillow against her cheek -- or was she just remembering what it was like to hold him while she’d been drunk? And she wished absently that she’d kissed him while they’d been drunk, or maybe flipped him over on that cliff and fucked him, or maybe gone down on him in the back seat of the DeSoto, because she’d had more than a little experience going down on vampires, and he probably would have appreciated it, and oh, god, was he hard? Had he gotten hard at any point on her birthday? Did he want her now?

It was hard to say. His hands were by his sides and he wasn’t moving. At all. He was sort of unnaturally still, actually, no heartbeat under her cheek. His breathing, shallow and inefficient because he didn’t need it for oxygen, was passing by her ear. She wondered why he wasn’t holding his breath. She tried to listen to the mayor and whoever he was talking to outside the closet, as she was sure Spike was doing, but Spike was really distracting, and she wanted to bite him. Just gently. His chest was right there, and her mouth opened, but she shook her head and tried to repress it, because Jesus, this was not the time. 

This was so not the time. 

“So we are absolutely on schedule for the Dedication, aren’t we?” the Mayor was asking. “Because of all the things we can’t let go, that is absolutely the most important. That is the beginning of my Ascension, we can’t let any part of this be tossed aside or made light of. I’ve been building to this for a hundred years.”

Shit, they were talking about important big bad stuff! Buffy had to get her head on straight. No more thinking of Spike. 

And then Spike shifted his head a little, maybe to hear more closely, and his breath wasn’t going past her ear, it went past her neck, and the little hairs there stirred with it, and Buffy screamed silently and completely missed whatever the fuck it was that the Mayor and his cronies were saying, which wasn’t anywhere near as interesting as the erotic images that had started flicking through her mind at the thought of Spike closing his lips over her throat, kissing her with that cool mouth that was breathing, breathing, his cheek caressing hers, and she swallowed and her hand clenched and she closed her eyes in the dark and just _breathed_ him in. 

And fuck, were those his lips? That cool, gentle touch against her skin, as his nose nestled in her hair, were his lips against her? Open and soft and yes, his breath came out between them, caressing her skin with air, and fuck! She shivered and tried so hard not to move, not to move, not to move, except she really wanted to kiss him, and she shifted her head just a little until she could breathe in the scent from his neck, and the scent was so strong there, no wonder vampires went for people’s necks, it was like a drug. 

Under any other circumstance Buffy would step away, take a deep breath, and try to calm herself. When she wanted to get fucked she usually went to a bar and picked someone up, let them fuck her in an alley or a car -- never her home -- and then forgot about them. Sex to her was a series of ugly blow jobs in seedy alleys and back rooms, half the time with vampires she shortly had to kill. It was having to memorize a complicated set of instructions so that Carter was sure she’d learned the rules of seduction, drilling her over and over. It was hurried, emotionless thrusting with people whose names she never remembered and whose faces she’d rather forget. It was full of body odor and danger, roughness and dismissal, or clinical, cold facts of biology. She’d never wanted a friend in her bed. She’d never had friends to want there. And even though Spike was what he was, and she was what she was, Spike was, even if only temporarily, a friend. 

And a fucking hot one, too, whose strength was clear and whose scent was intoxicating, and her hand went up, the one that had held the stake -- had she dropped it? She must have -- and then touched his chest just to the side of her own head, and Spike twitched as she did it, and also fuck, he was alive inside this body, or undead, or beautiful, or something, and she absolutely could not help it, her other hand shifted, just a little, to touch denim. It was subtle, she was so, so slow, but she had to know, she _had_ to know, and at first she was disappointed. She touched the fly of his zipper, and it was stiff, but not with him, just the tilt of folded denim stiffness, and she relaxed, because he wasn’t hard, and this was all her, and she knew better than to do this, anyway, and she shifted her hand away, only to find a softer hardness to the left of the zipper fly, something that twitched as her hand brushed against it, and oh, god, he _was_ hard, he was hard, it wasn’t just her, and she shifted her head, muttered “Fuck it,” under her breath, and kissed him. 

***

Spike nearly jumped out of his skin. He couldn’t keep his breath under control once her lips were on his, and panted through his nose as his mouth was occupied with her taste, her warmth, the taste of the slayer. 

And here he’d been behaving himself. The slayer was… was the slayer! She was the pinnacle of everything in his dreams, a fixation when he’d never even laid eyes on her, and it wouldn’t have mattered if Buffy was six foot tall and butch with a thin mustache and arms like tree trunks, he’d still have considered it an honor to touch her hair or lay a blow on her. The idea of _kissing_ the slayer had been so far past the moon of possibilities that he hadn’t even let himself consider the idea even after Buffy had given him that peck on the cheek the other night. 

And there she’d been, pressed up against him, and he’d started a quiet litany of, _You can’t kill her, you can’t kill her, you can’t kill her. Keep it together, Spike old boy, you can do this. Just don’t try to kill her, you can’t anyway, and you need her to get this damned geas off, so you can’t even piss her off too much, don’t kill her, don’t kill her_ , and bloody hell, her hair smelled like magic, and it was right in his fucking face. He wanted to grab it, yank her head around by it, but he settled for breathing it in, keeping his hands rigid by his sides instead of wrapping them around her and breaking her back, sinking his fangs into her throat, letting that hot blood gush out between his lips, drink her down, kill her, _kill her!_ But no, _don’t kill her!_ Fuck!

He was trying really hard not to vamp out, and he licked his teeth to keep them down, which didn’t work, because that just made him think about hunting down a victim, so instead he let his head shift to get the scent of her hair out of his nose, which also didn’t work, because now he was breathing in her fucking neck, and god, how did she make her heartbeat so loud? Was she _trying_ to get them caught? _Stop it, stop it, stop the heart, stop it,_ and he could feel her breath on his neck, too, now, and he wanted to put his hands over her mouth again, feel her scream against his fingers as he just stopped that fucking breath, so he held his hands so, so, so still, still as the dead. 

He should stop breathing, he knew. He should pull a corpse and just freeze, but _god_ did she smell good, he just hadn’t the willpower to not breathe it in. And then the fucking bint started _moving_ against him, the monster, her hand on his chest, just brushing his nipple, and _fuck_ , and then her other hand brushed against his crotch, and of course he was hard, so _double fuck_ and then Buffy muttered an oath under her breath and suddenly her mouth was on his and _triple bloody fuck with chocolate sauce!_

The closet vanished, the mayor’s office, the town hall, Sunnydale, the world all vanished, and Spike was pressed up against a delectable, beautiful, amazing, deadly beast of all power, and his arms went around her, and it felt even better to have her in his arms than he’d thought it would, her body seemed to just _fit_ there, and she just kept kissing him, and bloody _fuck_ was she using her teeth? She was, her teeth, on his lip, nipping and licking and nipping again, making his lip swell up to kiss her better with, and then she went deep, her tongue filling his mouth, and he opened wide for her, pulling her closer, running into the files as he staggered under the glorious onslaught of the slayer.

The slayer. _The slayer!_ He was fucking snogging the slayer, and she’d bloody wanted him to do it! _Fuck!_ Would she let him? He left her mouth and dove for her neck, and oh, oh, oh, she let him, she let him, she squeezed her arms around him and she _let him_ bite at that smooth, sweet-smelling throat, and god, he needed more, and he found himself vamping up, but _don’t kill her!_ was still there, which was a good thing, because that would probably end it all, so he didn’t bite down, but instead his passion softened to something careful, and he kissed and laved at her skin with his tongue beneath his open fangs, and she made a small noise, and kind of a squeak, and _fuck_ , but that was cute, and he felt her fist clench against his chest, and then she had moved, and, oh, oh, fuck, she was biting him, her blunt little slayer teeth were biting at his chest, pinching at the flesh, and no, he couldn’t bite back, he couldn’t dare bite back, so he squeezed her tighter, and let his hand travel up to that hair, that hair, and whatever ponytail it was in collapsed under the squeeze of his fingers, and then it was loose and fragrant and pooling in his hand, and he tugged, oh-so-gently, and the slayer gave a gasp, and her teeth left him while her body arched against him, and that meant she was against his groin, and it knew _exactly_ what to do with that, so his hand went down to her ass and lifted her slightly to put her at a better angle, and her mouth went to his jaw, and her legs went around him, and _fuck_ and he pushed her against the wall to get friction while he went back to her sweet, delectable mouth, and she kissed him around his fangs, but the wall moved, it wasn’t supposed to move, and he almost punched his hand through it to hold it steady, but the wall moved more when he tried that, because wall-- 

Wasn’t a wall. It was a door, and not a particularly strong door, and the latch popped, and suddenly he and Buffy were falling down onto the ugly grey carpet of the Mayor’s ugly green room, and the world popped itself back into place with a jolt. Spike and Buffy looked up to see the Mayor and assorted lackeys standing and staring at them with varying levels of disbelief. 


	21. Play Along

“Spike?” said the Mayor with a bit of a laugh in his voice. “What’s going on, people, where’s my security?” 

Spike did a quick assessment, trying to force his mind off the slayer lying beneath him. Mayor Wilkins, two humans, and one, two, three, whatever, handful of bumpy faced minions, and he knew he couldn’t fight them, and he was pretty sure even Buffy couldn’t fight them, not if the Mayor pulled any sudden tricks. Spike didn’t know if the Mayor actually could pull tricks, or what kind of tricks he could pull, but he had always been able to sense power from the guy, and when you were outnumbered in a compromising position in someone else’s territory was not the time to check and see what tricks they could pull. 

“I’m sorry, Mayor Wilkins. It would seem the committee hasn’t set the alarm yet for the night,” said one of the humans, who seemed fairly senior. 

“Well, you know what they say, Alan,” said the Mayor. “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” 

“Yes, sir,” said Alan, who smelled scared. In a room with all these vampires, Spike wasn’t surprised. 

The Mayor turned to Spike. “Spike, Spike, what are you doing here?” Wilkins asked. “And who, may I ask, is this?”

A little spark blew in Spike’s brain. It was risky, but if Wilkins didn’t know who Buffy was, then there was a chance -- just a small one -- he could bluff his way out of this. He pulled himself to his feet, glad he was already vamped up. It was easier to play Big Bad that way. He casually put Buffy behind him. “Oh, uh, this is Lolita.” 

“Excuse me?” said Buffy with an edge to her tone. 

He really wanted to tell her to play along, but he couldn’t with all the vampires in the room. “Sorry, pet. Lola.”

“Ex _cuse_ me?”

Spike kicked her shin with the back of his heel, praying she’d take the hint. “Lola and me were just wanting to look about the place. Lola’s _real_ interested in politics. Thought I’d, uh, show her around. If you know what I mean.”

“Lola, huh?” said Wilkins with a disapproving look. “Now Spike, I thought you were a family man. Where’s Dru?” 

“Oh, she’s about. Oh, uh, not _here_ obviously, but she’s… uh….” Invention failed him.

“Recuperating,” Buffy said quickly. 

“Right. Convalescing. She’s at home,” Spike said, a little relieved. Buffy had caught on. Well, she wasn’t a moron. 

“Spike, Spike, Spike,” said Mayor Wilkins, standing up from his leather-backed chair. “You know I don’t approve of that kind of carrying on. One man, one woman, that’s what I believe in.” 

“Well, Lola, uh… she… she and I, uh…”

“I’m going to be a vampire,” Buffy said with a squeak to her voice he had _never_ heard from her before. He turned to stare at her. Buffy had tilted her head and put a vapid expression on her face, and what the hell? And also, okay, he could work with that. Unless the other vampires just decided that meant she was a victim and pounced. 

“ _You’re_ going to be a vampire, are you, sweetheart?” Wilkins asked with a patronizing look. 

“Well, yeah,” Spike said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Dru and I are in the family way. Dru was a little lonely, you know, and I just figured a pretty little daughter she could dress up and put in ribbons…. Just what the doctor ordered. Was just showing Lola here how fun being a vampire could be, you know? Can do what you like, see what you like, go where you like. It’s a real fun time.” 

“You’re going to be enlarging the family? Oh, well, that’s _great_ news! Congratulations, you old rascal.” Wilkins slapped Spike on the shoulder and grinned at him. “I’d offer you a cigar, but I stopped smoking in the eighties. Was a bad example for the kiddies, you know?” 

“Oh, yeah. Totally get that,” Spike said, wondering how long they were going to have to try and pull this off. If any one of these buggers recognized the slayer, they were toast.

“Children are the foundation of the future, did you know that, Spike? And you, little lady. I see you have ambitions in life.” 

“Well, you know, the lonely ones are so… so _lonely_ ,” Buffy said with that bubble-headed squeak still in her voice. She hung on Spike’s shoulder and stared at his face with an adoration that made Spike feel a little funny, even while he knew it was an act. “I just thought, if I could be of any comfort to them on their long journey through the night, I just _had_ to agree to join them.” 

“Yes, yes. It’s important to have goals in life,” Wilkins said. “When are you doing the turning?” 

“Just a few more, uh, family traditions to observe before the final moment,” Spike said. “What it means to be a vampire, what we’ll expect from her once she’s turned, the right way to take a victim. We’re training this one up good. No fast turn-around for our new girl. She’s going to be our legacy.” 

“You know, I approve,” Wilkins said. “So many people just ignore family planning in this day and age. Just whip off offspring willy-nilly like stray puppies. But not you.” He turned to Alan. “We should send Dru a congratulations card, Alan, put it on the mailing list. You do have their address?”

“We’re not sure where Spike and Dru are staying right now,” Alan said. 

“Oh, well, we can’t have that.” There was no menace in the Mayor’s tone, but Spike heard it anyway. “Where are you laying your hat these days, Spike? I saw you and Willow had a little falling out.” 

“We’ve had our differences,” Spike said. “But no grudges. We’re family, too, in our way.” 

“Yes, I suppose you are.” Wilkins wasn’t looking convinced. His head was up rather archly and he had a thoughtful look on his face. “So where _are_ you staying, anyway?” 

Fuck. “We’re flitting around and about these days. Different places. Mostly in the caverns,” Spike said, hoping that was out of the way enough that Wilkins wouldn’t have been looking for them there. “But we’ll settle down again once Lola here is proper family.” 

Wilkins turned to him. “You know, if you’re looking for a job…. You can never be too sure about the future.”

This wasn’t the first time the Mayor had made this offer. Spike had always managed to put him off before, and so far the Mayor had let him, treating him much the same as the Master had. Hopefully he still had that free pass. “I’ll think about it. Maybe we’ll send Lola here to work for you, eh? Summer internship. Would you like that, pet?” 

“You mean I’d get to work with them?” Buffy asked, gesturing to the minions ranged around the room. “That sounds _so_ exciting!”

“Well, things will be a little different by summer,” Wilkins said. “After all, my Ascension will have happened by then.” 

What the fuck was the Ascension? Spike had heard rumors before the whole Willow debacle that there was some big ceremony the Mayor had been building toward, but it wasn’t anything he’d ever paid any attention to. He wasn’t up for civil politics or ritual ceremonies. “Oh, well, I knew _that,_ ” Spike said. “But Lola here, she’s just really excited by power.” Buffy kicked him. “Politics,” he added. 

“I can understand that,” Wilkins said, “but that doesn’t mean I approve of you breaking into my offices, young lady.” 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Buffy said, with a little pout that Spike wanted to bite, it was so fucking cute, and goddammit, he had to get them out of there. “I’m just so impressed by everything I’ve heard about you, I… maybe got a little carried away.” 

“And you don’t have to be so afraid of me that you hide in a closet,” Wilkins said. “The next time you want to see a seat of political power, you just have to make an appointment. If I’d known you were in the family way, Spike, I’d have made an exception for a private audience for a prominent citizen such as yourself,” 

“We’ll remember that, Mayor,” Spike said. “Lola, we should let the Mayor and his team get on with the political machinations, love. You ready to leave?” 

“Oh, I’ll follow you anywhere, Spikey!” Buffy said. 

She’d gone too far, but he pushed through. “Right. We’ll just press on then. Thanks so much for your understanding, Mr. Wilkins.” 

“Any time, Spike,” Wilkins said, and reached out to shake Spike’s hand, which he did, firmly. 

“Allow me to show them out, sir?” Alan suddenly piped up. 

“That’s a fine idea. My deputy mayor will show you out. And, um, Alan? Make sure the alarm is set when you’re finished?” 

“Yes, sir,” Alan said, and he opened the door wide for Spike and Buffy. 

They weren’t out of the woods yet, but Spike was almost dancing as he went with Alan to the elevator. They’d pulled it off. They’d actually pulled it off! They still had to make it out of the building, but they’d managed to bluff their way out of the room, and that was no small feat. 

They stepped into the elevator and Alan stood behind them. And then it all came crashing down. 

“Don’t look at me,” Alan said low behind them. “I know who you are.” 

Spike and Buffy both turned to look at him. 

“I said don’t look at me,” Alan said, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the opposite wall. “There’s cameras everywhere. Face the wall before you answer me. You’re the slayer.” 

“Who says?” Buffy said, facing the wall and keeping her voice low. 

“I’ve seen your picture. You’re Buffy Summers. The Mayor assigned me to keep track of all the _interesting_ elements in the town. I’ve been keeping your picture from him. I need you to kill him. No, don’t look!” he said again as Buffy turned her head. “There’s a camera to the left of the elevator, then pointing right at the front doors. Look away from them. You need to kill the Mayor, and you need to do it quickly, or you won’t be able to.” 

“We need to get to Willow, mate,” Spike said. “You help us do that, we’ll kill whoever you want.” 

“I can do that,” Alan said. “Meet me in the alley behind the Bronze at midnight tomorrow. Can you be there?” 

“What’s to say this isn’t a trap?” Buffy asked. 

“Bring whoever you like! The whole Library Squad if it comforts you, but I need to talk to you! Will you meet me?” 

“You be there,” Buffy said, “and we’ll see.” 

“Fine,” Alan said. “Don’t go straight home. He half bought it, but he’ll probably have you followed. He hasn’t liked not knowing where you are, Spike.” He then smiled broadly and glanced up at what Spike assumed was one of the cameras, though he didn’t bother to look himself. “And Dru’s doing well, is she? I’m so glad to hear it.” 

They proceeded down the hall and through the main doors, and Alan waved at them from the door, seeing them off. Buffy nearly got on the bike to drive them away, but Spike distracted her with her helmet, and then took the key out of her hand. “Can’t let the _girl_ drive,” he said low, gesturing with his chin at the windows of the Town Hall. Buffy nodded subtly and took pillion.

Spike started the Kawasaki and took off down the road, trying like hell to think where they could go. 

“Is anyone following us?” Buffy asked after a minute, her voice muffled by the helmet. 

“Don’t see anyone in the rearview,” Spike said. “But if the Mayor’s as powerful as rumor has it he could have scrying stones, invisible minions, hell, he could just _know_ where someone was if he had a physical link.”

“I dropped my stake. Would that count?”

“Was it special?” 

“No.”

“Then probably no.” Then he paused, his fangs going down as he thought. “But I shook the bloke’s hand.”

“Would that count?” 

“Maybe,” Spike said. “For a while.” With a link as tenuous as a handshake, though, that probably wouldn’t last more than twelve hours. _Think, think_ \-- was Buffy trying to find his nipple with her fingers? Because that wasn’t helping the thinking. 

Spike ran through possibilities in his mind. Twelve hours -- that would put them firmly into daylight. Would definitely have the benefit of seeing off any vampires who might be following them, but that would mean he’d have to find somewhere to hunker down himself. Sewers, caves, back to the high school. Then a wicked thought occurred to him and he took off down a different street, doubling back on himself. 

“Where are we going?” Buffy asked.

“Got a place,” Spike said over his shoulder. “Somewhere the Mayor already knows, and won’t surprise him if we hunker down there for a night.” 

“Okay. I trust you.” 

Spike raised an eyebrow at that, and felt a little sick. What in the fuck was he doing? _Okay, now_ stop _thinking,_ he thought to himself, because he was very afraid of where his thoughts might end up leading him. 


	22. Through Playing

Buffy didn’t know what to make of it when Spike slipped the Kawasaki into a strange complex and led her down some concrete steps to a white door. He took hold of a padlock that had been attached at head height and tugged. It didn’t break. He tried again, and failed. Finally Buffy took pity on him and tried it herself. She tugged and the screws snapped out of the fastener, though the lock stayed fixed. She handed the whole fixture to Spike. 

“Ta,” Spike said, opening the door. 

Buffy saw the reason for the padlock soon enough. The door didn’t lock properly, the locking mechanism by the handle having already been forced once. Spike reached to turn on the lights, and grunted in satisfaction when they flared into light. “Knew he still paid the bills.” 

Buffy looked around. It was a spacious basement apartment, but it looked ransacked. There were shelves with nothing on them, and some overturned chairs. Some black-and-white artwork was hanging haphazard on the wall, with some pieces of a set obviously missing. A paper screen was torn and books and papers from a desk had been scattered along the floor. The lights came from reflecting lamps, some of which had been tossed off-kilter. There was a bed on a bit of a platform in one corner, the only part of the apartment that looked like it had been organized since a raid, since the bed was made neatly. 

“What is this place?” 

“Angel’s apartment.”

“His _what?_ ” Buffy turned to Spike.

“This is Angel’s place.” Spike wasn’t looking at her. He was agitatedly striding around a little, sidestepping fallen chairs. “He decided not to go back once you’d invited him home like a lost puppy.” 

“You mean he’s been pawing through my… _stuff_ when he had all this?” She kicked at the rubble on the floor. When he’d said his place had been raided after he was kidnapped, she’d assumed burned or something. This didn’t look like it would have been hard to put back together, and the furniture was far and away better than what she had in the rental. 

“You invited him in, pet.” 

“And he lies a lot,” Buffy said with a roll of her eyes. She glanced around. “How long do we have to stay here?” 

“Ten, twelve hours,” Spike said. “Unless the Mayor does manage something with that stake of yours, in which case we’re buggered anyhow.” 

“You said he couldn’t.” 

“Don’t know what the bloke can do, do I?” Spike asked, looking flustered. “Wasn’t my idea to go traipsing through the Mayor’s lair.” 

“I was trying to do something productive, since you sat on vital information for like a month.”

“And I was trying to help Dru, got that?” Spike yelled at her, much more loudly than her little dig warranted. “That’s all I ever wanted to do, help Dru! That’s it! That’s all I wanted!”

“Well, why are you yelling at me about it?” Buffy yelled back. Spike threw his arm up and turned away from her. She took a step toward him. “Do I scare you?” 

Spike half laughed, but he looked nervous, and he still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “No.” 

“What happened in the closet, did that scare you?”

“No!” 

“Then why are you upset?” 

“I’m not upset!” Spike yelled. 

Buffy laughed.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he said, but the venom was out of his voice. He sounded wounded and very young. 

Buffy got serious. If she was going to get what she wanted, she knew she couldn’t play this the way she usually did. She crossed her arms over her chest and regarded him. She wondered how old he’d been when he was turned. “You make me laugh,” she said casually. He finally looked at her then, and she shrugged. “You make me happy. I’m not used to that.” He gazed at her, and she got nervous and turned away. “Don’t suppose Angel has any coffee in this place?”

“I doubt it,” Spike said, sounding relieved. “I guess he might. He says the stuff makes him jittery, though.” He went into a little kitchen alcove and opened the fridge. “Woof. Blood’s all gone off.” 

Buffy poked her head around Spike’s shoulder. “And so much for _I don’t drink human anymore,_ ” she said, looking at the medical blood bags hanging there. 

“Yeah, poncy bugger always was a liar,” Spike said. They turned around, awkwardly bumping into each other. “Excuse me.”

“Sorry.” 

Buffy opened a cupboard. There wasn’t anything in it, but she did see a coffee maker on the counter, so she opened another cupboard while Spike dug in the one under the sink. 

“I win! I found coffee,” Buffy said, claiming the bag of pre-ground that was stashed next to a couple of mugs. The mugs had probably held blood at some point, but they were clean, and she could rinse them out first. 

“ _I_ win,” Spike said, pulling out a liquor bottle with two fingers of liquid in the bottom. 

“No fair!” Buffy said. 

“I’ll share,” Spike said. He pulled out a couple of mugs and poured half what was there into each. 

“What is that?” 

“Angel’s Cognac,” Spike said. “Cheers.” 

They knocked mugs, and Buffy took a sip -- she’d never had Cognac before. She had to admit as she took a swallow that she had no palate, but it was sorta good. “He got anything else down there?” 

“Looks like it’s mostly been raided,” Spike said. “This was in the back.”

“Damn. You want coffee?” 

Spike shrugged and turned away from her, wandering off with his cup of Cognac. 

There was no cream or anything, but she found sugar in the same cupboard she’d found the coffee in. She waited by the machine, anxiously sipping her Cognac. There wasn’t enough for more than a swallow or two. With how hard each of them could drink, she knew it wasn’t going to carry them. She was going to have to manage this on her own. Finally the coffee ran through, so she poured a cup for each of them and slopped some sugar in. When she left the kitchen corner she found Spike had lifted up one of the overturned stuffed chairs and thrown himself down in it. He’d taken off his coat. As she watched he downed the last of his liquor and put the cup on the ground. 

There wasn’t another unbroken chair, but the coffee table looked whole. Buffy pressed one of the cups into Spike’s hand and lifted the coffee table to sit on. “So are we going to talk about it?” she asked over her mug once she sat down. 

Spike wouldn’t meet her eyes. He touched the side of Angel’s boring white coffee mug. “I’m in love with Dru,” he said to the mug. 

“I get that.” 

“Do you?” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Do you really?” 

“What do you think I’m after?” 

“I don’t know. What do _you_ think you’re after?” 

She wished she could articulate it. She focused on him, instead. “Aren’t you mad?” she asked. “Don’t you want to get back at her?” 

“I want her back.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.” 

Spike turned back to his coffee mug. Like the night before with the cocoa, he seemed more interested in holding it than drinking it. 

“So we know she cheats,” Buffy said. “Has she done it before?”

Spike looked away. That was a yes if she’d ever seen one. 

“Have you ever?” she asked.

“Not in years.”

“But you have.”

“Not with anyone who mattered.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I mean victims,” Spike said coldly. “That what you want to hear, slayer? I’ve made women scream, and I’ll do it again.”

“I didn’t expect you to become a good guy just because I kissed you, Spike.”

He looked troubled. “Why’d you even do it?” 

“You’re hot, and I’m lonely,” Buffy said. That boiled it down pretty well, she thought.

It was the right thing to say. Spike got that predatory look in his eyes again, like when she’d cut her thumb. But then he looked away again. “I’m not for sale.”

“Yeah, neither am I,” Buffy said, annoyed again. “I just want….” She grunted, annoyed with herself. “I don’t pretend I’m any good at this.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you?” 

“You want me to fake it?” Buffy snapped. “Fine. I’ll fake it.” She put her coffee cup down with a click and took off her jacket. Underneath she was wearing a tank top. She pulled it down to show her cleavage and when she next looked at Spike, she had on her sultry look. It probably didn’t work as well as it had before the scar, but she still knew it. Carter and the hookers had taught her well. “Hey, handsome. Looking for some action?” She slipped off the edge of the coffee table and slid her whole body between Spike’s knees. “Bet you I could give it to you good,” she murmured, and slid her hands up Spike’s legs. His nostrils flared a little, but he didn’t move. She bit her lip provocatively and ran her nails over his thighs. “Ooh, I just love a tight pair of jeans. They hide so little, and make me feel so… ooh… hot.” She undulated before him and tossed her hair back a little. His eyes seemed to spark. “You know, you’re so sexy.” She caressed her own torso, pinching her breasts together. “I just want to feel your tight, muscular body against mine.”

“Quit it.” He sounded uncomfortable, but his eyes didn’t leave hers. 

She had lots more where that came from. “Don’t you want to taste?” she whispered, looking up at him from her position on her knees. “I want to taste. I want to taste myself on your hard, throbbing co--”

Spike’s hand went out and grabbed the back of her hair. The coffee cup fell to the ground, and she felt a splash of hot coffee hit her knee. “Stop.”

“What’s wrong, Spikey?” Buffy asked, still with the seductive throb to her voice. “You don’t like?”

“You’re hunting. It’s not real.” 

“No,” she said, dropping all wiles. “It’s not.” Her own hand shot up and grabbed his wrist, shoving her thumb into it to make it unclench, forcing his hand off her hair and down. He hissed at the pain, and Buffy forced his arm aside, and before he could decide to hit her or anything she got up and climbed over him, straddling his lap. He looked stunned. “It’s all a game, and it’s a game you know, and it’s a game I’m tired of playing.” She could hear her weariness, her tone dropping as she said it. She put her hands gently on either side of his head and looked down into his eyes. There was a clash of emotion there, terror and longing and a touch of confusion, and it was damned cute, and she wanted to kiss him again, but more… she wanted him to say it. She knew she could seduce him if she just kept pushing, she’d never had any problems seducing vampires before. She wanted something different from Spike. Something without pretense. 

“This is real,” she said quietly. “I want you.” 

He said nothing, just looked up at her from his position underneath her, bewildered and helpless as he had looked on the porch. There was even something tragic still in his eyes. She caressed the eyebrow with the scar. One day she’d ask him how he got that. “It’s that easy,” she whispered into his face. “If you want me, just say it. Do you want to bag a slayer tonight, Spike? If you do, I’m yours.” She nearly bent to kiss him, but she waited, letting him taste her breath on his lips. His face had a hungry look. No bumpies, but he couldn’t seem to focus his expression. She waited, one second, two seconds, three…. 

“Don’t tempt me if you expect me to play nice,” Spike said, that purr she loved back in his voice. “We’re not known for our incorruptibility.”

“Just what I’m counting on,” Buffy whispered, and finally let herself kiss him again. 

She tasted him this time, and he tasted of Cognac and salt, and then she realized it was blood -- she’d always thought it was just that the vampires she’d kissed in the past had all eaten recently. She didn’t realize they just naturally tasted a little bit like blood. But she wasn’t opposed to fresh blood, really, not if it was natural for him, and it wasn’t as if human mouths often tasted any better. And his lips and tongue made up for anything, the way they caressed her and tasted her, devouring her gently like she was some sweet dessert, his unneeded breath passing between them as he breathed her in. His hands went to her hips and her ass, gripping them tightly, and he lifted his hips to grind into her, a feat which was probably uncomfortable considering Spike’s tight, tight jeans. 

At the dig of his fingertips, though, she realized she needed to put some rules into play. She’d never done that for vampires before, instead just staking them before they could break any of them, but this was going to have to be a little different. As Spike left her lips and started kissing down her throat, Buffy took a deep breath. Always a gamble -- some men left when she listed her rules. “No bites, no bruises where people can see them, and I have condoms in my jacket pocket.” 

Spike growled. “No being a little bitch,” he said in her ear. 

She pulled away. “I mean all of that.” 

“You can’t tell a vampire not to bite.”

“No fangs, then!” 

“Deal,” Spike said, and went back to her throat. 

God, what was he doing? What spot had he found, that he was just gnawing away on -- because okay, yeah, he was biting now, and it felt _really_ good what he was doing -- and she knew they hadn’t agreed yet. “And the rest?” 

“You’re always bruised.”

“I don’t want to have to explain to Giles.”

“Fair enough,” he said against her flesh. 

A heat was building in her, something burning under her skin. _Please, don’t let it end_ , she thought as she added, “And the condoms?” 

Spike hissed and pushed forward until they had landed on the coffee table, his weight heavy and strong above her, and one hand scrabbled for her jacket while the other pulled her tank top down over one breast, leaving it empty to the wind until his hand claimed it hard and pushed her down on the wood. Her arm flailed, and the last coffee cup went skittering, hot coffee flying over Angel’s carpet. Spike was muttering and distracted trying to grab at her jacket pocket. 

“Here, let me,” Buffy said, looking up. 

Spike forced her down again with his hand on her sternum, his fingers just cupping her throat. He didn’t say _don’t move_ , but it was clear in every line of his face. He finally found the condoms with his left hand and shook them out of the jacket. It went flying, and Buffy absently hoped it didn’t land in the spilled coffee. He let Buffy sit up then, and she scrambled for his belt buckle while Spike wrestled with a condom package.

He was fast. She’d been hoping for something slower, so she could savor him, but urgent had its charms, too. She snapped open his jeans and his cock popped out instantly, long and hard and uncut, and her mouth opened automatically at it -- that would be fun to put between her teeth -- and she took the condom to slide it on him. While her hands were busy with that, Spike unfastened her fatigues and slid them down her hips, and when they reached the table top shoved her backwards so he could rip them off her. They slid inside out and caught on her boots, and Spike swore and wrestled with them until one boot came off inside the fabric, and he seemed to decide that was good enough, because at least he could lift her leg then, which he did while he moved forward and plunged inside her, no preamble, one of her legs clutched in his arm, the other wrapped around his hip with her pants still dangling from it. 

And then he was over her again, stretching her thigh, staring down into her face, humping and pumping while he breathed hard, and there was something so desperate and lonely in it, she reached up with both hands and caressed his head. His eyes closed and he fell into her touch, slowing down a little in his thrusting. Then his head shifted and he bit her thumb, sucking and tonguing at it like he had when it was bleeding, and then he was kissing her again, his mouth on hers, only barely, taking little nips and kisses while he mostly just inhaled her breath, her life, as he shoved himself inside her. 

Buffy felt hot, dangerous, as if she should be getting ready to do something. Of course, she should. She should be getting ready to stake him. But she had no stake, and she didn’t want Spike to die tonight, and Spike couldn’t kill her anyway, and it didn’t feel any less life-or-death than it usually did with a vampire, which made her groan, because _god,_ that was wrong, wasn’t it? But it had such _power_ in it, and she didn’t want to let that go. “Harder,” she murmured, and dammit if Spike didn't listen, because he thrust harder inside her, and let go of her leg so that it could wrap around his thigh, which was still wrapped in jeans, he hadn’t even half pulled them down. He bore down on her so hard the legs of the coffee table shuddered, then wobbled, and then the whole thing came down beneath them, and Buffy cried out, but it didn’t stop either of them. Spike just had to change positions, and he pushed Buffy further up the wood until her head was on the carpet, which left her neck arched and exposed, which was clearly not something Spike was going to ignore, because he kissed and laved at the exposed flesh with moist, panting breaths, nipping on her occasionally, and Buffy was just starting to really feel it, really, really feel it when Spike suddenly yelled, his strength hard on her upper arms, and he’d come already, and Buffy sighed, because what had she expected, really? Men never had the stamina she had. Still, it had been nice. 

But Spike wasn’t done. Maybe he had come, but after holding still for a moment he thrust again, slower this time, without the urgency he’d had, and he looked down on her with his eyes open and innocent and relieved, and then he smiled. “We broke Angel’s little table.” 

“Poor, innocent thing,” Buffy said. 

“What other innocent things could we corrupt?” Spike whispered. Buffy sighed with relief. At least he wasn’t one of those wham, bam, thank you ma’am types. He slid off her, dropped the condom on the floor, helped her stand up, and then he picked her up like Drusilla -- it made her laugh -- and carried her to the bed where he laid her down like a queen and went about removing her boots and pants properly. 

Buffy sat up to remove her shirt, and Spike turned and gently put her down. “Stay still. This is my present, I want to unwrap it.”

Buffy giggled and lay back down on Angel’s red blankets. “What are you doing?” 

“You said I’d get to bag a slayer,” Spike said. He finally wrestled her other boot off, and left it and her fatigues on the floor. “Sit up.” He lifted her shirt over her head, taking her bra with it. 

She felt embarrassed and a little vulnerable completely naked, and a thought occurred to her that she ought to know where a stake was, because door not locked, and naked and alone. And then she realized she wasn’t alone, and Spike could help her fight anyone off if they were attacked, and she could probably make a stake from the broken coffee table, and she was sick to the teeth of thinking all the time about _killing_ , so she just wanted to think about Spike right now, and live out her ridiculous, completely wrong dreams. Which had all involved Spike with his clothes off, now she thought about it, so, “Can I?” Buffy asked, her hands around the bottom of his t-shirt, and he let her lift it off him, raising his hands to her. A second later there he was, revealed, his cut chest, his pale skin, still glittering with chains and rings she was absolutely not going to take off him, because they were hot. She ran her hands up his chest and caressed his neck, playing with the silver chain there. 

“You’re not wearing a cross tonight,” he said, sliding his own fingers down her neck. 

“I had plans.”

“Planned to be exiled for twelve hours into a room with me?” Spike asked. 

“No, that just worked out nicely,” Buffy said. “But I had been thinking about kissing you.” 

She sat back and admired her spoils. Spike was much, much sexier than Carter, who was probably the only person she’d fucked whom she’d seen completely naked. And from that moment on she decided she absolutely would not think about that anymore, because it was turning her off, so she just admired Spike and his sculpted musculature. The guy had to work out. Even the undead could get out of condition, and Spike was _pretty_. That didn’t happen by accident. 

Spike had a bit of a smirk on under her frank admiration, and part of her wanted to smack it off him, but the rest of her figured he’d earned a little pride, so she said nothing to tear him down. He finished undressing, then put his arms around her and laid her down on the bed alongside him, kissing her gently, his tongue tasting her lips, licking and caressing them, and he murmured, “That tastes delectable.” He kissed her again. “One,” he said, and then nuzzled her lip a little bit before moving onto her jawline. There he kissed her again, touching a certain spot on her chin with his tongue. “Two.”

“Two?”

“Shh,” he said. He moved to her neck and gave her three kisses, all in roughly the same spot. “Three, four, five,” he said, and Buffy suddenly realized; he was kissing her scars. She had the one on her lip, which she’d gotten during her Cruciamentum, and then that one where that spot of acidic blood had pocked her jaw -- you could barely see it under concealer, but Spike had obviously been paying attention -- and now he was addressing those bite marks she’d gotten when she was a young slayer and hadn’t realized how to stop the vampires biting her before she took them out. And he was kissing those bite marks, and now he had moved to her shoulder and the sword cut she’d gotten in Nepal, and kissing that, still counting under his breath. 

“You think you can find them all?” she whispered. 

“I’m going to try,” Spike said. 

“I dare you,” Buffy muttered, because there were a few she knew he’d have troubles with. 

Spike kissed down her shoulder, caught the ones on her forearm, and then had to pause and consider her hand. He finally settled for counting the callused mark on her right hand where she’d been taught to punch gravel as only one, but he gave it a sensuous lick before he moved on to her palm, where he counted at least six more, three of which she hadn’t even known about, little cuts she’d never counted as serious, even if they had left tiny scars. He made her hand tingle.

Spike was well into the twenties before he switched hands, and she stopped checking by the time he flipped her over and started counting the ones on her back -- there were only three there. Then he moved to her legs. There were several on her lower shins, claw marks and cuts and some more burns from moving through booby-trapped dungeons and swamps. None of her scars shone out, of course. Slayer healing did some magical things, even if it hadn’t had time to do much to conceal the mark on her lip yet. But Spike studied her flesh, reading the marks there even if they were smooth, interpreting discoloration as either natural or scar tissue, and kissing them, claiming them. It made her body hum. She felt _seen_. 

He finished counting at fifty-three, and then added one deep kiss to her navel. “Fifty-four,” he said when it made her giggle. 

“That’s not a scar.”

“That’s the original scar,” Spike said. “Want I should try and find more?” 

“I think you got them all.” 

“Doesn’t mean I can’t keep looking,” Spike said. “In fact, I wonder if you’ve got some right… down… here.” 

He trailed his nose down her belly, across her mons, and into her cleft, where his tongue darted out and he licked at her clit. She gasped, and Spike growled low. “Fuck,” he breathed suddenly. “Don’t move. _Mine_.” He wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked hard, and when her mouth went open in shock he spread her legs wide and started positively _feasting_ on her cunt. 

This was not something Buffy had ever had before. He-who-would-not-be-named had gone there, but not for long, mostly trying to teach her to fake an orgasm as quickly as possible to bring the situation back to where she was in control. At least, that was the way he’d put it. But Spike wasn’t calculating anything with what he was doing, he just seemed to have found himself a fount of pure bliss, and was lapping at it like a cat with cream. He’d go slow and gentle, breathing her in, licking every part of her inner and outer labia, and then he’d lip and suckle at her clit, then he’d growl softly and put his tongue actually inside her, something she hadn’t realized was possible, tasting every part of her, then go back to her clit, nuzzling it and kissing it as if he were in love with it, and then his fingers found their way inside her, just one at first, then a second, and she could feel his rings on her labia as he slipped in and out, and he sucked, and sucked, and sucked, and Buffy let herself be splayed open like an offering on an altar, and let him have his feast. 

She had already determined she wouldn’t fake it with Spike. That wasn’t what this was about. If it was, there wouldn’t have been any point with bothering. And of course that meant she wasn’t already calling his name and dragging him back up to fuck her with his cock, which meant at first she was nervous that he’d get bored, and the nervousness kept her from really enjoying it. But as it became more and more obvious that Spike just enjoyed feasting on her in and of itself, the nervousness faded and turned to concern. Maybe she couldn’t get off today? She didn’t always. She almost always liked sex, even with people she didn’t like very much, but she didn’t always orgasm, so maybe that was what was going to happen here? But Spike was so very devoted to his cause, and she started to feel it building, and she looked down and saw his white head between her legs, and it was dangerous and beautiful and determined, and she caressed it while she felt her hips reaching up toward him. 

And then something wonderful happened. She got annoyed with the idea of not coming, with the idea of faking, with the idea of giving up, and she humped up against his mouth, humming and whimpering to herself, determined, and it was getting there, but it wouldn’t come, and then Spike moved and the sensation dimmed and she _whined_ like a lonely puppy, and Spike instantly came back and applied more pressure, and she grunted, because yes, that, right there, and Spike heard it in her voice and he slid his fingers out so she could concentrate, and took hold of her thighs and _focused_ , and then there it was, it was coming, she was actually going to come, she knew it, and the idea that it could be taken away from her now scared her, so she hurried, pumping up against him, and he held her hips and let her, and she was humping hard now, and slower, and then it started to come, and then it built and built and she strained against him, and then it did, it came, and his tongue kept moving her clit even as she froze against him, grunting loud enough to wake the dead -- I’m here, dead, come and get me! -- and she moaned as it came crashing down around and through her, and she relaxed and expected to see a self-satisfied Spike come and show off. 

But the self-satisfied Spike apparently had other plans. He took a breath, settled his arms around her thighs, and went back _again,_ concentrating on her cleft this time, because it was dripping wet, and he seemed to be positively feeding off her, but it felt good, so she let him, and oh, fuck, was he doing it again? He was, he was definitely going for another, and his fingers entered her again, this time three of them, and she groaned at how full that felt, and he petted her inside, his fingers sliding against her flesh, and she wasn’t sure she could do another one, and worried how or even whether to say that to him, but forget it, he was apparently enjoying himself, and if he got bored he’d probably tell her. Spike wasn’t good with bored, and he apparently wasn’t bored. 

The second one hit her hard. She wasn’t expecting it, and it didn’t build. She was just lying and enjoying the warm sensation and then suddenly she was screaming again, banging her head against the pillow, and Spike actually _laughed_ against her pussy, and then she felt something -- he had closed his teeth around her clit, and she screamed again, because the tiny pain hit her with what seemed to be a double orgasm, like two at the same time, and she squealed and pulled away, because there was no way she could take more of that, and she panted and stared down at him, and there it was, the self-satisfied Spike she’d been expecting, and she gasped and shuddered, and Spike reached for her cunt again, and she pulled away, and his eyes flickered modestly. “I’ll be gentle,” he said low, and she let him spread her legs again and this time he just petted her, smoothing the swollen flesh with the pads of his fingers, swirling in circles up her mons, sliding down the smooth flesh of her thighs, gently petting her labia, sliding one finger in and then out again, parting the folds to gently flick at her clit until -- fuck -- it was building _again._

Buffy had had enough of this. She grabbed Spike by the ear and tugged on his head. “Get up here.” 

Spike crawled over her with a predatory grin on his face until he hovered over her like a grey sky. A self-satisfied grey sky. “Can’t kill me one way, trying another?” Buffy whispered at him. 

“Something like that.” 

Buffy took hold of his shoulder and flipped him over on the bed. “I have news for you, mister. I know how to handle myself.” 

“Never thought you didn’t.” 

“You just watch me.” She looked around for the condoms. They were on the other side of the room, but it took only a minute to hop down and fetch them from the splintered coffee table. Buffy came back with them, set most of them on the floor for later, and used her mouth to slowly spread one down Spike’s cock, which was not at all reluctant. He leaned back with his eyes closed, slowly smiling. 

She started going down on him, sliding up and down, sucking particularly on the tip. She liked uncut cocks, though she’d never said that to anyone. They felt more natural, and made for a better ride. Spike’s cock twitched under her tongue, and he grunted a little. “Is this when you pull out the stake?” he asked. 

“One more minute,” she said around the condom. “I wait until they’re just about to come.” 

“That is cruel and unusual.”

“And you love it.” She sat up and looked him in the eye. “The closer they are, the more likely the others are to have come out. I never do this when I’m hunting only one.” She straddled him and looked down over him. “I don’t have to, do I? I’ve already got him, in that case.” 

Spike gazed up at her with absolute worship in his eyes, and she laughed before slowly lowering herself over his prick. “When do you do this?” he asked. 

“Never dared,” she said. “Though a few have humped me from behind before I turned the tables on them.” She circled her hips as she went down. “Never for very long.” 

“Is this very long?”

“Oh, _very_ long,” she said by the time she got all the way down. She felt so _full_ , she hadn’t realized she was so empty to feel so full. “So long. As long as it takes.” 

“Gonna ride me, pet?” 

“Ooh, call me that again.” 

He chuckled. “Pet,” he said, his voice like sex itself. “Sweetheart. Goldilocks. You gonna come for me again, love?”

“Thought I’d try,” Buffy breathed, undulating over his cock. “Mm.” 

“Don’t try to force it. Just make me part of you, eh?” He let his hands travel over her stomach, her waist, her hips. “You are so amazing. Sorry I came so fast before. Knew I couldn’t concentrate if I didn’t.” 

“You’re forgiven.”

“God, I hope not,” he said. 

Buffy leaned forward and gazed down into his face. “Why are you so damned pretty?” 

“Predator,” he said low. “I think you got that problem, too.” 

She wagged her hips from side to side. “It works for me.” 

“I think it’s working for both of us.” 

It was definitely working. Buffy rode and rode, enjoying the sensation inside her more than stimulating her clit, just glad to be so full, with the scent of Spike everywhere, and his hands everywhere, and his cock just filling her up, and she pulsed and humped and leaned forward and kissed him, and then he grabbed her hips and ground her down atop him, and “hard,” he whispered, and “more,” and “love,” and she moaned and thrust and claimed him, and then, “Give it to me, slayer, do it, oh god,” and she squeezed him hard and he swore at the ceiling. “Fuck!” 

And it was cute, and she wanted to hear it, and she ground down around him, and he yelled again, spurting inside her, and then his fingers were between them, and he was vibrating against her, and that didn’t take long to make her already flaming pussy flare up again and she gasped and cried out, and then let out everything in one long, feminine sigh of satisfaction, and she fell down over him, and she felt his softening cock leave her, and it didn’t matter, she was satisfied for now. 

And they had _hours_ before they were allowed to leave. 

She rolled over, and Spike lay there for a moment before getting up. He took off the condom, slipped out of the bed, and lifted the covers. “Here, get under,” he said, sliding them out from under her. He tucked her back into the sheets and slid in beside her, caressing her hair gently out of her face. “You’re human, you’ll get cold.” 

“I’m not human,” she said languidly, because she really felt very happy and sated. “I’m the slayer.”

“You’ll still get cold,” Spike said. He kissed her forehead. “You realize I’m not done with you.” 

“Me neither,” Buffy said. She cuddled into the pillows and looked up into his blue eyes. “Now that we’re here,” she said, “tell me the truth.” 

“About what?” Spike asked, his voice as sex-sapped as hers. 

She reached up and slid the back of her finger over his face, fondling the cool flesh, trying to read his eyes. “When this is all over, and we finish off Xander and Willow, and the geas is lifted. You still plan to kill me, don’t you.” 

Spike’s mouth opened and he looked confused. “I….” He trailed off. 

“I told you to tell me the truth,” she whispered. “Just the truth.”

She half expected him to lie, to say no, because of course that would be the right thing to lie about. If he wanted more sex, he was probably going to lie. But then he looked down, almost shyly, and he said, “That was the plan.” 

“And now?” 

“Now I’m not making plans.” He looked up. “So I guess it hasn’t changed.” 

Buffy found herself smiling. It was perfect. “I still plan to kill you, too.” 

“Really?” he said, sounding flattered, and they both grinned at each other. 

And suddenly they were laughing, laughing like schoolchildren on Angel’s bed, and everything was still right with the world. 


	23. Issues

An owl’s screech rips through the dark, tearing at the throat, dropping rubies from the slice of the night. _Caw, caw, caw_ , and there was her soot-soaked raven, tripping over the tracks, gnawing the eyes out of the pretty, pretty babies. “Maybe I shouldn’t have sent her alone,” Angel was saying in the back of the dark.

“She’s not alone.” Drusilla carved an open eye on the side of the wall with her charcoal. Her fingers were black, like her raven, like her heart, like Spike’s coat as he whirled into danger. “It’s dark where she is.” 

“What do you mean?” Angel said. “Is something going to hurt her?”

Dru started to laugh. It hurt too much not to laugh. Because there it was. The vision, the first vision, the image she’d always had of Spike burning in the sun. It had come. The sun was behind the planet, but it had come all the same. “It’s too late,” she moaned. 

She saw it then. It was the slayer. The slayer was made of sunlight, a golden glow with dark tendrils, reaching out for the shining in her boy. Her shadows tangled up with his, and his light bled into her, and then Drusilla saw it, Spike and the slayer, melding into one, and Drusilla screamed, because it was real. She’d always seen it happen, the day her fair knight turned to another. “Shadows, shadows, shadows, shadows,” she whimpered, falling to her knees. The sun rose, sliding golden tendrils into the darkness. Drusilla reached out to take one into her hand, but of course it burned her. She screamed and reached forward again, but another line of pain laced through her head.

“Dru? Dru, what is it?” Her Angel’s face broke through the sunshine, twisting her. “Are you having a vision?” 

When did they ever stop? She had to go, the sun was too bright. She had to find the thread of the darkness. It was there, out in the world, away from here. She had to find it first -- or had to let them find her? “I’ll do it, I’ll find them,” Drusilla told him. “I’ll find them, my Angel. Then we can all be family. No more broken chains.” 

“Drusilla--”

“She’s claimed him, Angel. It’s back. All alone again. Who dies firstly, the eyes or the prize?”

“Dru, it’s all right,” Angel said, trying to hold her. 

“Flight! Right! Which side are you on, boys?” She ducked under Angelus’s arm and fled up the stairs. “Which side?”

She had to run. Angelus was faster and stronger than her. She had to escape him. She had to run before he realized what she was after. She ran out the door with the sunlight streaming from her head, breaking through the reality, and had disappeared into the night before anyone realized she was leaving. 

***

Spike had already known what was going to happen when he turned the motorcycle toward Angel’s. He wasn’t a complete idiot. You don’t share an epic, mind-blowing kiss with a legendary creature in a compromising position, then go somewhere private with a bed for ten hours without knowing what’s going to happen. He’d freely chosen to go to Angel’s instead of, for instance, Willy’s Bar or something.

But it did seem as if fate had conspired against him this evening. If he had wanted to stay faithful to Drusilla, if he had meant to be true, if he hadn’t already been tempted to stray just to enrage her, the slayer’s onslaught still felt foreordained. Or maybe it was just calculated. The slayer probably hadn’t planned the closet, but she’d certainly jumped on the opportunity once it had arisen, and she had clearly had no hesitation about seducing him once they were here. In fact it had only been Spike’s own qualms that had kept them from jumping on each other like a pair of crazed weasels the second Angel’s door had closed behind them.

No, the girl had planned this. She’d taken off her cross, prepped herself with condoms, and strategically seduced him. He could almost hate her for it. 

That’s what he’d do. He’d hate her for it. He could do that. 

“Could I have Dru help kill you?” he asked, slowing his thrusts down as he growled down at her. They were still tangled under the bedsheets, but she hardly seemed like she needed them. She was flushed and glowing, her skin positively burning against his as he moved inside her. 

“If you really need her to hold me down, I guess,” Buffy said. “But are you so pathetic you can’t kill me yourself?”

“It’s just fun as a team,” he said. 

“Mm, is that it,” Buffy said, grunting as she squeezed him multiple times in quick succession. “You’re not just lazy?” 

“Hey!” He grunted with pleasure, but was still indignant. “I killed two slayers, completely without help!” 

“Get on with it then.” 

Spike was finding it hard to concentrate on this scenario while pumping away inside her. “I’ve forgotten,” he breathed. “Did you still have your stake, or did I kick it out of your hand yet?” 

“It’s harder if I still have it, isn’t it?” 

“I’ll show you hard, you fucking bitch,” he breathed, grabbing her hair and pulling her head back. Her mouth opened, and he kissed her hard, driving deep and deeper into her. She moaned into his mouth, and he drilled away. 

“You were saying?” she panted. “I’m still coming at you.”

“Are you?” 

“With the stake.”

“Right,” he growled. “I drive into your stake with my hand, and you’re weaponless.” 

“I can hold on better than you’d think,” Buffy growled back. 

“You misunderstand me,” Spike said. “You made a move and I slammed into the stake. You drove it into my palm and I snatched it out of your hand while it impaled me.” 

“Ooh, no one’s ever tried that.” She looked impressed. 

“See? Gotcha. No more stakes.” 

“But you’re injured.”

“So? A slayer must always reach for her weapon. I’ve already got mine. You’re helpless.”

“I’m never, ever helpless,” Buffy breathed, arching her hips up. 

Spike grunted and dove for her neck again. 

“Bruises,” she gasped. 

“Fuck off,” he said, without unclenching his teeth. 

Buffy dug her nails into his jaw just by his ear, and his mouth opened automatically. Okay, no one had ever tried _that_ with him, either. “Ow!” 

“You’ve already bruised me, haven’t you?” she asked, that pant still in her voice. 

“You can wear a scarf.” 

“You are pure evil.” 

“Vampire.” 

“Fuck me.” 

“Fuck off,” he said, doing exactly that. Buffy kissed him and tried to roll him over, and he growled and forced her back, holding her arms down. “There. Now I’ve got you.”

She gazed up at him, her eyes sex-glazed, her breath hot as hellfire. “So I’m weaponless,” she said. “Do you take the stake out of your hand, or do you just leave it there, tempting me? Because the first thing I do is try to get it back.” 

“I throw it away.” 

“I have eyes. I can see where it flew.” 

“Not without taking your eyes off me.”

“Point,” she said. 

“That’s when I rush,” he said. “Body slam.”

“Were we by any walls?” Buffy asked. 

He’d forgotten. “Yeah,” he said. “Your ribs crack.” 

“Ow.” But she sounded more turned on than ever. “How many?”

“Uh, three. Right where my arm hits you.” 

“Okay, then what?” 

“Well, you’re right under me, aren’t you?” 

“Like this?” Buffy asked, wriggling her hips. 

“Uh… no. Against the wall still.” 

“Why not?” she asked. “Is that how you did your slayers? Did you make any of them scream?” 

“They weren’t victims, they were warriors. Like me.” 

“Oh, I see,” Buffy said. “All right, go on. I’m still on the wall. Go on. Kill me.” 

“Right,” Spike said. He was trembling. Maybe it was the geas, stopping him from vamping up and killing her right there? Yeah, yeah, had to be the geas. Because he felt almost scared, and he hadn’t felt scared when fighting her for real. “I plunge my teeth in.” He plunged his cock in. 

“Carotid or jugular?” 

Fuck. “Both.”

“That’s a deep bite.” 

“I’m trying to kill you, bitch.”

“It’ll be over real fast that way.” 

It would. That would be a shame. Damn. “All right,” he said, tangling his mouth with hers. “Want me to skip it?” 

“Nah, do it fast,” Buffy said. “You can torture me to death another night.” 

Another night! “Fine,” he said. “It’s fast. Your blood spurts down my throat like a river, like a fucking river.” 

She grunted and pumped her hips faster than his, carrying him along. “Go on.” She looked like she was about to cry. 

“I do it,” he panted. “I swallow you down, all of you. It comes so fast it rushes over my chin, down my neck, my chest. I can’t keep up with the flow coming from you, the life pouring out of you. You’re mine, Buffy, the slayer, you pour into me. I’m gonna kill you so hard, so fucking hard, god.” 

“Do it,” Buffy moaned. “Oh, god, Spike! Oh, god!” 

“That’s right. Pour it into me. Do it, slayer, feel it, die for me. Die!” 

She came. He could feel it, the difference in the way she clenched around him, from deliberate to the uncontrolled flutterings of orgasm. She screamed loud and strained against his arms, and he felt himself vamp up, because really, how the fuck was he supposed to keep it back with the real scenario and the fake one both pounding through his head, and Buffy opened her eyes and made a sound of annoyance, and her hand snaked out from under his and she grabbed his jaw. “I said no fangs!” 

“God dammit, bitch, you try keeping them down!” He sat up, flipped her over, and plunged into her again, grabbing her hips from behind. “Now _I_ am going to _fuck_ you, any _way_ that I fucking _please,_ you fucking _got that?_ ”

“Condom still on?” she asked.

“Yes, shut up,” he said, and rolled his eyes as she reached her hand back and checked. She’d been vigilant about those, and he didn’t blame her, since, after all, he was evil, and honesty wasn’t his priority. They weren’t needed, since he couldn’t get her pregnant or carry human diseases, but it wasn’t worth arguing about, or getting an arm broken for. “You stay still and take your fucking.” 

“You don’t like me to stay still,” Buffy said, her face muffled in the mattress. 

“Then _move_ , bitch,” he growled down at her, humping away at her. 

“Am I dead yet?” she asked, moving against him. 

Spike almost sobbed. She had _no_ idea how hard it was to keep coming up with death stories with her hot little quim pulsing away at him. “Yes, you are fucking dead,” he said. “Your eyes rolled back and your blood stopped flowing and all the heat is leaving your tight little body, and I leave you like a broken ragdoll on the street for the rats to find.” 

“Oh.” She sighed with something like relief, and let Spike concentrate on fucking her for a few blissful moments. Long enough for his fangs to go down, anyway. The bed creaked and the room reeked of sex, and he felt surreal, like he was in and out of some dream, and the truth was, he wasn’t sure which was the dream, the killing or the fucking, because it all seemed backwards. You kill the slayer and maybe dream about fucking them. You don’t fuck the slayer while dreaming about killing them. But then… maybe he didn’t know as much about slayers as he had thought he did. 

“Do I get to kill you now?” she said into the rhythmic slaps of his fucking. 

“Just let me enjoy your death for a little bit,” he said, and he hadn’t realized how tired he sounded, because she made a sympathetic sound under her breath. 

“Oh, poor baby. It’s okay,” she said, and she didn’t say it sarcastically, but with genuine kindness, and -- 

“Oh, god,” Spike realized. He froze as the orgasm washed through him, pouring himself into the condom, and he wanted to shout at her _Don’t do that!_ because apparently it did bizarre things to his insides when she did, but he let it happen -- didn’t have any choice, really -- and then pulled away from her, panting and spent. 

Buffy slid up like a cobra from her position on her stomach, turning to him and reaching for his cock. He gasped and flinched, but she paused, as if reassuring a frightened animal, and then gently removed the used condom from his cock and threw it to the floor. He hissed, but it felt better once it was off. He sighed, and she joined him at the foot of the bed, gently snuggling up under his arm. He let her. He could barely move. 

He lay and held her, or let her hold him, or something. Finally he took in a deep breath, one redolent with the scent of her hair, her skin, her sex, and muttered, “You have some real issues, lady.” 

“Says the vampire who’s all about the killing people.” 

“‘S what I’m built for,” Spike said. “You know, I always thought every slayer had a death wish. Are you really built for dying?” 

“What about you?” Buffy asked. “A vampire doesn’t go hunting slayers unless he’s courting dust.” 

Spike didn’t say anything, and eventually Buffy looked up at him. “Are you?” 

A tiny doubt nagged in the back of Spike’s head, telling him that she was uncovering bits of him he’d never liked to admit even to himself. That there was something about him that longed to end this darkness. That there was some bit of him, maybe a screaming, haunted shadow of old poet William who didn’t want to be what he’d become. That there was something in him that sought out being caught, that had relished brassing off Angelus, that danced about in the sunlight under a mere blanket, something in him that had gone hunting for the only thing that could kill him because he didn’t want to endure. 

“Nah,” he said after what he knew was too long a pause. 

“Are you _sure_?” she asked. “What if I….” She stopped and climbed down from the bed. Oh, no. What was she doing? He wanted a break. 

She was not going to give him a break. The sound of splintering wood cracked through the room, and a moment later Buffy returned with a long sliver of wood from the broken coffee table. 

“What are you going to do with that?” 

“Nothing much,” Buffy said. “I have a geas, don’t I?” She cuddled back into his arm and gently touched the sliver to his chest. 

Spike grabbed her wrist. “Don’t tease me.”

“That’s all we’ve ever done,” Buffy said. “Close your eyes. I won’t hurt you.”

“I don’t trust you.” 

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “Trust the geas.” She slid the shattered wood over his chest and down his stomach, drawing little circles and designs with it. Spike glanced down. It hurt a bit, but she wasn’t cutting his flesh, so he closed his eyes and trusted the geas. She couldn’t kill him. She couldn’t kill him. 

But oh, what she could do with that thing. She scratched and tickled, poked and scraped, dug deep enough to leave marks and slid gently enough to make him giggle. She circled his navel, traced the lines of his abs down to his hips, poked at his thighs, made him lift his knees as she stabbed under them. She traced her makeshift stake down his shin, and slipped it between his toes. She seemed to be claiming every bit of him. Every time he shuddered she stabbed him a little harder, so he had to force himself to be still, but that just made her tickle him, and that made him flinch, and then the cycle started all over again. 

By the time she was done with his legs, Spike was panting and shivering, breathing hard, and barely able to keep his eyes open. She slid back up his body and he was scared for a moment that she’d go for his cock. She didn’t. She just started drawing patterns on his pectorals, circling his nipples, stabbing gently along his collar bone. “You really did bruise me, didn’t you?” she asked gently. 

Spike forced himself to look at her. Yeah, her neck was marked. More red marks than bruises, but something would probably rise. “You mad at me?”

“Furious,” she whispered. She held the stake up over his heart, balancing it like a magic pencil, one finger holding it on the end. Spike swallowed. Okay, she had a geas. She had a geas and she couldn’t drive that thing down. Still felt bloody scary. He tried to breathe slowly.

Finally she slid the sliver away from his heart and… okay, now it was on his neck, which was not making him feel any less nervous. Maybe even _more_ nervous, as she couldn’t stab his heart, but she could stab his neck, and that would really hurt. “Can I kill you?” she asked, and it sounded very casual for what she was asking. 

“Pardon?”

She put the sliver down on the bed and straddled him, her legs over his hips. “I’m just… gonna kill you for a minute, okay? It won’t hurt much.” 

“What are you--” he had to stop as suddenly the slayer put both hands around his throat and squeezed. He couldn’t get air out to speak, and he couldn’t draw air in to breathe, and he struggled against her, but she was far too strong, and his arms couldn’t seem to knock hers off, though he tried. 

“Stop struggling and this won’t hurt,” she said with a wicked grin, and he growled, or would have growled, if he could get air or his throat to growl, which he couldn’t, because her hands were cutting off all his growling mechanism, and then she leaned down and whispered into his mouth. “Don’t break my rules.” And she bit his lip gently and bore down on his throat with all her tiny, powerful strength. 

Spike stopped fighting. He locked eyes with her and glared. Could he fight her off? Maybe. But only maybe, and probably not without hurting her, and what would that do to this… whatever sick dangerous fucking thing they were doing? So he clenched his teeth and waited for the unconsciousness which could, in fact, come with being choked out, something he’d pulled on Dru a few times when she wouldn’t stop her hysterics over something. 

But it didn’t come. Buffy eased her hands without any kind of twist, and Spike drew in a breath. He wasn’t even sure if what she’d done would have killed a human, let alone incapacitated a vampire, really, but it would have been damned dangerous for someone who wasn’t undead. He breathed raggedly up at her, trembling in his chest, and she frowned and flopped down on the bed beside him. 

Spike rolled over and started kissing her arm, her chest, her breast, and she languidly caressed his hair. “You can stop now, you know,” she said. 

“No, I bloody can’t,” Spike said to her nipple. 

“We’re out of condoms.” 

And no breaking her rules. He’d gotten that. He had no doubt she’d teach him with extreme prejudice if he broke another one. “We can get around that.”

“No.”

“Humor me,” Spike said. He climbed over her and started humping on her stomach, his cock hardening and thickening between them. She was so short he had to bend his head to look at her this way, but it did mean she got a good view of his scratched pecs, and she seemed to enjoy the sight. She reached up and caressed them, tracing the tiny marks she’d left with her fingers. 

“Okay, this is fine,” she said as he rubbed harder, and she traced his neck and tilted her head back to look into his face. “Turned you on, didn’t it?” 

“Just a smidge,” he said, because he wasn’t sure if _turned on_ was even the right word. Yes, it had made him want to fuck her again, but more it had made his insides leap and his body quiver and his skin tingle. It made him feel alive in a way nothing else did, not even killing. It was dancing with death, that’s what it was, dancing with the slayer, and was that what she did every night? “Why are you with me?” He realized how that sounded. “Doing this with me,” he corrected. 

“I told you, you make me happy. I’m going to enjoy you while I’ve got you.” She reached up and held him close to her body, breathing into his neck. “Any way I can.” She bit him hard, and he hissed. 

“You said no bruises,” he said. 

“I said on me.” She closed her teeth again. 

He growled, because he could, and drove himself into her taut little belly even harder. 

***

Spike was enjoying the taste of her sweet quim again, because she didn’t feel she needed a condom for that -- thank god! -- when a phone rang. Spike ignored it, but Buffy started. “Shit!” she said. “What time is it?” 

“I don’t know,” he said into her cunt. “Sun came up a little bit ago.”

“Shit, shit!” She kicked her leg over his head and slipped off the bed. She crossed the room and scrambled in her jacket pocket for her cell phone. Spike sighed and wiped his chin on the back of his hand. “Hi, hey, yeah, hi, Giles. Everything is fine…. No. No, we got out of Town Hall okay, but, uh, we were followed. We had to find somewhere to hide for a bit. We’re fine…. I know. I know I’m late for school.” 

Spike got out of the bed and put his arms around her from behind. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered in her free ear. 

Buffy hissed and said, “Um… could you repeat that?” into the phone. 

Spike could hear Giles droning away on the other line. Something about being tardy and someone starting to notice her absences, and he whispered in Buffy’s ear, “I’m stuck here, don’t go.” 

“Um… yeah.” Buffy said. “I… um….” 

Spike nibbled on her ear, rubbing his hands up her waist. “Stay here and fuck me more,” he breathed. 

Buffy took a deep breath. “Sorry, Giles, but there’s a chance the Mayor cast a spell on us. A tracker spell or something. Spike says it’ll wear off by, uh, noon--” 

“Sunset,” Spike whispered. 

“Maybe… maybe sunset.” She formed her mouth into the words _Stop it!_ but Spike wasn’t about to pay attention. He nibbled on her neck. “It’s, you know, better safe than -- ah -- sorry.” 

“Are you all right?” Spike heard Giles distinctly as Buffy let the phone slip from her ear a little. 

Spike let his hand slide up to cup Buffy’s breast. 

“I’m a little tired,” Buffy said. “We’re… holed up, um, in a basement.” Well, she wasn’t lying. “Until the spell passes.” 

“Do you need me to bring you anything?” 

“No, we can go out, we just, uh, can’t go anywhere where I’m supposed to be. Like home or school.” 

“This sounds a little… odd,” Giles said. “Are you sure about this spell?” 

“I’m sure,” Buffy said, sounding decisive. “We have an ally in the mayor’s office. He said not to go straight home.” 

Well, still true. 

“But we need to have a Squad meeting tonight,” Buffy added. “Right at sunset. We’ll skip patrol. All hands on deck, I’m going to need everyone tonight.” 

“All right, I’ll tell the others,” Giles said. Buffy gasped as Spike pinched her nipple. “Are you _sure_ you’re all right?” 

“Just a little stiff,” Buffy said, which also probably wasn’t a lie. “Basements, you know. Not very comfortable. So I’ll see you tonight.” 

“While you spend another day off with Spike,” Giles said. 

“Yes! Off with Spike! You want him to dust trying to get from here to the house?” 

Giles said nothing for a long moment. “I’ll see you this evening,” he said, and he hung up. 

Buffy turned around and shrugged Spike off. “Stop that.” 

Spike growled low. “Mr. Librarian doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” 

“He wasn’t talking about anything,” Buffy said hurriedly. She was pulling on her fatigues. “I have to go.” 

“You don’t have to go to your bloody school,” Spike said. “It’s a waste of your bloody time! You’ll never be worth anything at it. Just a prison for putting children until they’re churned out as brainless automatons.” 

“Like you’d know.” 

“Like you know bollocks about me,” Spike said. “Are you really gonna let some pencil-headed watcher dictate what you do with your life?” 

“The watchers own me, Spike. The sooner you get used to that, the happier you’ll be.” She was driving her feet into her boots now, her still-bare torso gleaming in the lamplight, her pink breasts teasing him like tiny winking eyes as she moved her arms. 

“That’s all rot,” Spike said. “You don’t have to listen to them wankers any more than I do.”

“Oh, and I should listen to you?” Buffy snapped. “You’d just as soon see me dead.” 

“Well, so would they!”

“Exactly!” Buffy snapped. She reached down to finally put on her shirt. She tossed her sex-tangled hair as she did it, making Spike wince. Was she really going to leave him stuck alone in Angel’s apartment for the day? She shrugged on her jacket and glared at him. “Get out of my way.”

Spike’s mouth set in a determined line. “Make me.” 

Buffy grabbed him by the upper arms and shoved him sideways. He nearly hit the wall, and stumbled over Angel’s fallen astrolabe. 

“I won’t forget this, slayer!” he shouted after her. 

“Bite me!” Buffy yelled over her shoulder as she stormed outside. 

Twenty-five minutes later Buffy slammed back into Angel’s apartment laden with grocery bags. “There. Donuts, sandwiches, orange juice, and I even got you some fucking vodka and a quart of ox blood— don’t bitch, it’s what they had. And a jumbo pack of condoms so we can stop being so fucking _inventive_. Are you happy now?” She kicked the door closed with her foot, and dumped the grocery bags on the floor. “I was never going to school.” 

Spike looked up from where he’d been glumly making more coffee to help pass the time, feeling as if the moon had been swallowed by a monster, and there she was. It was as if the sun had risen in a pretty, non-fatal way. Buffy was fuming and irritated and clearly hadn’t forgiven him, and she was _here_ and she was glorious, and Spike ran across the room and picked her up as he would Dru, spinning her happily, and she laughed, and he set her on her feet, and kissed her soundly, and she put her arms around him and hugged him against her chest, and oh, bollocks, he was in trouble. They’d better get around to lifting this geas so he could kill her quickly, or he was going to end up nothing but dust, one way or another. 


	24. Moody Vampires

Spike slept like a child. 

Buffy noticed it for real as she was gathering up what stuff she wanted to keep from their little tryst -- mostly the vodka and unused condoms. They’d drunk screwdrivers and wrestled and laughed the morning away. Spike had slept easily beside her after they’d made love another seven or eight condoms worth — really, she’d lost track of how many orgasms they’d wrought for one another. It was more than she’d ever had in her life, that was for sure. She was finding it hard to walk. She hoped this Alan guy really was on the up and up and she wasn’t in for an actual fight tonight, because she wasn’t sure she was up to it. 

Spike didn’t hear her making more coffee just before sunset, or gathering the last of their food up to make into a package, or even when she’d tripped in the dark and fallen over the broken coffee table, swearing loudly. He just lay there, breathing evenly, and when she turned on the lights he looked peaceful and surprisingly innocent in the sex-soaked bed. 

It had been… nice… sleeping beside him. 

She wasn’t used to having someone in the bed with her, not for sleeping, so she kept waking up and looking down on him as he cuddled up to her. He smelled good, and his arms felt good, and she liked the weight of him beside her, and she really didn’t know what to do with any of it. Yes, she’d meant to have sex with him… but she hadn’t quite expected _this_. 

Every part of her ached deliciously, and she could have lain in bed beside him for another night just enjoying his presence, but no. She _did_ have a calling, so she’d gathered up her clothes, and gone to investigate Angel’s bathroom, which she’d only made cursory mid-coital visits to so far. It had a nice shower, so Buffy had indulged in the hot water, though Angel either didn’t use any body products, or he’d brought them all to her house. The only thing left was a bar of generic soap on the sink, so she’d washed up a bit with that, and left her hair for another day. She couldn’t even find a comb, but Angel hadn’t bothered taking down the mirror that had been in his bathroom, so she ran her fingers through her hair and braided it up tight only to remember she didn’t have a hair tie. Oh well. 

She dressed again and added the other item she’d picked up on her shopping trip, a flowing feminine scarf which she wrapped around her neck. She tried different, artistic ways of tying it. Finally she came up with something that didn’t look _too_ conspicuous. It was when she was almost pleased enough with it that Spike awoke from his slumber and came to join her in the bathroom. He put his arms around her and seemed to gaze at her in the mirror, though of course he didn’t show up in it. Buffy turned around to look up at him. 

“You up for a little shower sex, love?” 

“Library Squad meeting at sunset,” Buffy said. “They’re waiting for us.” He looked absurdly cute, his bleached hair all curly and tousled on his head. She reached up to run her fingers through it. “You should take a shower.” 

“I’m okay.” 

“We have a lot to do tonight.” 

“Told you, I’m fine.” 

“You smell like sex,” Buffy said. “Even I can smell it.” 

“And?” 

“And I don’t think I want to deal with the fallout of everyone knowing right off.” 

Spike looked gravely down at her. “Dru already knows.”

“You think?” 

“She has to,” Spike said. “She always has before.”

Buffy hadn’t realized that. “You mean, you knew last night that she’d…”

“Yeah.” 

“Is that… okay?” she asked. 

Spike’s head tilted a bit, and he looked tired. “She’ll slap my face, call you a jezebel, and tell me to eat you. Least that’s what she’s always done in the past. It’ll all work itself out when…” 

“When it’s over,” Buffy finished. 

Spike nodded. “And as for the others, my bet is Giles isn’t thick enough to miss the signs, nor Oz.” 

“And I sort of already told Anyanka,” Buffy admitted. 

“So that just leaves Angel. And I’d just as soon he knew.” 

“He will know, if everyone else does,” Buffy said.

Spike buried his head in her shoulder and whispered up into her ear, “Let me smell like you for a little bit. God knows if you’ll ever let me do this again.” 

Buffy was already gasping a little just with his voice in her ear and his naked body against her. “I could probably be persuaded, if you play your cards right.” 

“I may have a good hand,” Spike whispered. “You seemed to think so last night.” 

Buffy groaned and kissed him, but made herself stop. “We really do have to go. And if you want to have a blow up with Angel when we get there, we need to get that over with quick. We need to be in position well before midnight.” 

“Midnight?”

“Meeting? Deputy Mayor? Highly suspect location by the Bronze?” 

“It might just have been the only place he could think of.” 

“Or he wants to kill me far from the Town Hall and make it look like vampires did it.” 

“Vampires probably would do it, if that’s it.” 

Buffy sighed. “I want people with crossbows aimed at the alley, and I want backup, since it’s available,” Buffy said. “So we need to get there before he does.” 

“And wait,” Spike said. “I hate waiting.” He slipped behind Buffy and turned on the shower. “Be out in a tick.” 

***

_They can’t have done anything_. 

Angel told himself this again and again. This was the second time in as many days that Buffy had run off for twenty-four hours with Spike. Everyone was carefully avoiding mentioning the obvious, at least to Angel, but he wasn’t that dumb. Combine their outing with Drusilla’s vision, and even Angel was beginning to suspect there was something serious going on.

It was only a little bit after sunset that Buffy came into the house, Spike following at her heels like the dog he was. Angel sniffed. They smelled of each other, and a basic kind of soap. Certainly not reeking of some musty basement. If they had had sex, they’d found somewhere to shower. Angel stared at them, trying to read their body language. He couldn’t begin to tell Buffy’s. And Spike’s… well. Spike looked pleased with himself. That did not bode well. 

Giles looked relieved as they came in. “Excellent. I’m glad you, uh, found a safe place for the day. I should warn you, Mr. Snyder was not best pleased to see you taking yet another day off of school.” 

“My heart,” Buffy said as she stepped over the threshold, “bleeds. We have bigger fish to fry. Is everyone here?” 

Angel looked down. He was going to have to explain. “Not quite,” he admitted. 

“Well, I need all hands on deck,” Buffy said. “We have a mission tonight.”

Giles had assembled everyone, even Anyanka, who wasn’t really big on the slayer missions. Anyanka and the boys were waiting on the couch. It was Spike who noticed the missing member. “I’ll get Dru,” he said. “We may want her insights into the Mayor.” 

He couldn’t put it off any longer. “Spike,” Angel said. He put a hand on Spike’s shoulder. “Hold on.” 

“Let me go, Angelus,” Spike said darkly. “I’m going to speak with my lady.” 

“She’s not… uh….” Angel looked down. 

“Not in the best of moods, is she?” Spike asked. “We’ll just have to see how that goes, then.” He pushed past him towards the basement. 

“She’s not here,” Angel admitted. 

That made Buffy and Spike stare at him. “Drusilla’s _gone_?” Buffy asked. 

“Where is she?” Spike demanded.

“I don’t know,” Angel said. “She had some kind of vision last night, and she took off upstairs. I didn’t realize she was actually leaving until she had already left.” 

“And you didn’t take off after her?” Spike asked. He shoved at Angel. “You just let her run off into Sunnydale with this geas over her head? She could get hurt!” 

“She could hurt someone else,” Buffy said.

“She can’t kill others,” Giles pointed out.

“She can still maim and feed,” Buffy said, rounding on Giles. “You didn’t tell me this this morning.”

“I wasn’t aware of it until this evening,” Giles said. “Neither Angel nor Anyanka thought it merited a mention.” 

“I’m not the vampires' keeper,” Anyanka said. 

“I thought she’d come back,” Angel said. “She always has before.” 

“How would you know?” Spike yelled at him. “You haven’t been part of our lives for nigh a century!”

It was Buffy’s harsh eyes that really bit at him. “Angel, did I or did I not tell you that Drusilla was your responsibility right now?” 

“I didn’t know she was going to run away.” 

“Well, what _did_ happen?” Buffy asked. “She got some vision?” 

“I guess it was that,” Anyanka said. “I was just finishing up this TV movie where the heroine _really_ should have asked a vengeance demon to turn her boyfriend into slime mold, because that’s what he was, when Drusilla started laughing downstairs, like screaming hysterics, so I told Angel to keep her quiet, and then she started yelling something about claiming and eyes and death, and then she ran on through the kitchen and outside and we haven’t seen her since.” 

“And you just let her go,” Buffy said to Angel. “Do you know where she is? That sire thing?” 

“She’s still around somewhere,” Angel said. “I’m not sure of anything more than that.” 

Buffy glared. “I thought you were supposed to have a soul that made it so you didn’t do stuff like that.” 

“Stuff like what?” 

“Let people get hurt!” Buffy said. “You know she’s probably out there biting and torturing innocents as we speak.”

Angel shook his head. “You can’t know that.” 

“Everyone here knows that!” Buffy yelled. “Oz? Larry? Anyanka, what do you think Dru’s up to right now?” 

“Well, if I were her I’d be getting in a full meal of toddler,” Anyanka said. “Isn’t that what she kept asking for?” 

“It’s her favorite food,” Spike said, his voice hollow. 

Buffy pointed at Spike with her eyebrows raised at Angel. “Hm? See?”

“This is not my fault,” Angel said. 

“Everything she’s ever done has been your fault!” Buffy yelled. 

“I’m going to look for her,” Spike said. He headed for the kitchen with a swirl of his coat. 

“Spike!” Buffy yelled at his retreating back. “We have a mission tonight!”

“Sod off,” Spike muttered. 

“Oh, yeah? Well… well screw you!” Buffy yelled after him. She turned back to Angel. “This is your fault. You were supposed to watch her.” 

“I didn’t know she was going to take off, did I?” 

“No,” Buffy said. “Because you didn’t actually care about her any more than you ever have, did you?”

“I cared.”

“Not the way Spike did.”

Angel threw up a hand. “If you hadn’t been off with _him_ , he’d have been here with her to look after her.”

Buffy glared at Angel. “Do you still not get it? You messed that up by sleeping with her. You confused her, you confused him, you confused everything!” 

“I confused you,” Angel said. 

“This has nothing to do with me.”

“This has everything to do with you!” Angel yelled. “None of this would be happening if you’d just shown up when you were supposed to! But no, not this Buffy. Break one little path in her destiny and suddenly she’s off whoring herself to _Spike_ of all people!” 

“Don’t you _ever_ call me a whore.” 

“Did you do it?” Angel asked, ignoring the danger in her tone. He couldn’t stop it. He realized he’d pushed too far, he realized he was sounding deranged. He _felt_ deranged, a childish jealousy he couldn’t beat down. And it wasn’t the demon in him — that just wanted to kill Spike, and probably kill Buffy too, into the bargain. It was the soul in him, the man, who wanted to kick and yell and scream at heaven that it wasn’t fair. He hated Anyanka for doing this to them, for stealing his destiny from him. And he hated Buffy for making him love her, and not bothering to reciprocate. How dare she? How _dare_ she? “Did you actually sleep with Spike?” 

“Does it even matter?” Buffy yelled. 

“I’m afraid it does, Buffy,” Giles said, but his tone was quiet. “It will not go well with, um, certain elements in the Watcher’s Council if they find you are fraternizing with those whom they see as the enemy.” 

Buffy rounded on him. “They tell me who I _have to_ sleep with, then they tell me who I _can’t_ sleep with. I thought you said my body and blood are mine to do with as I please?” 

“And I meant that,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t very dangerous.” 

“Yeah, because petulant, moody vampires can really do a number on your self-esteem,” Buffy said. “You gonna turn on your heel and go, too, Angelface?”

Angel wanted to say yes, to storm out and leave her, but he had made a promise. “I said I’d help you,” he said, unable to keep the growl out of his voice.

“Yeah, but the wrong vampire is getting nookie, so that means I’m a whore, does it?”

Angel wanted to take it back — it was the kind of thing his own father would have said, and he hated that. But to take it back he would probably have to say he was sorry, and he wasn’t. He just wanted her to come to her senses. 

No one said anything for a long moment. Then Oz stepped forward. “I get it,” he said. “I think you should do what you want, and it should be okay.”

“Oh, there was a question about that?” Anyanka said. “Of course Buffy should sleep with who she wants. Spike was broken up with Drusilla, and there were vengeances to pay. It’s still not equal. Of course Buffy’s okay.”

“Well… if you like sleeping with vampires,” Larry said, “I don’t think you should have to hide that. I mean, so long as he’s not killing anyone. Which he’s not, right? So… yeah. That’s where I stand.” 

“Thanks,” Buffy said shortly to all three of them. “Not that I was asking permission, but still nice to hear.” She turned to Angel and Giles. “You two?”

“As a watcher, I should report this to Mr. Wyndam-Pryce and the Council,” Giles said, taking off his glasses to clean them. He slid them back on. “So I suppose it’s a good thing I’m not technically a watcher.” He turned to Angel. “I realize this is difficult for you, Angel. Are you certain you wish to continue to work with us?”

Angel gazed at Buffy. “Spike may not be back,” he warned her.

“Thank you, oh brilliant one, I hadn’t realized,” Buffy barked. “I thought he didn’t give two hoots about Dru. I’m so glad to have been enlightened.” She turned back to the others and put her hands on her hips. “Okay, so we’re two vampires down, and we have a mission tonight. The assistant Mayor or whatever he is, a guy who works for Wilkins. He says he knows who I am, and he wants me to kill the Mayor for him. He says in exchange for that, he’ll get me to Willow.”

“You can’t just go and kill a human,” Giles said. 

“I don’t know,” Buffy said. “He looks pretty evil. He’s got vampires working for him. Oh, and he said something about getting ready for his Ascension. Does anyone have any idea what he’s talking about?” 

“An Ascension?” Anyanka said, her tone flat with horror. “Are you talking a _demon_ Ascension? As in the Mayor is getting ready to Ascend as one of the Old Ones?”

“I don’t know,” Buffy said. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

***

“I don’t really know all of the particulars,” Alan said evenly to Anyanka. They’d met up with the man without a hitch. The Bronze was undergoing a full renovation, apparently under the eye of the Mayor, who had reclaimed the lease after the Master was defeated. Alan had been able to bring an entire file envelope of details for Buffy. Larry and Oz stood guard at either end of the alley with crosses and crossbows, while Buffy, Giles, Angel and Anyanka discussed what Anyanka was sure was a coming apocalypse. “Mr. Wilkins says that the Dedication is Monday night, and after that he’ll be entirely invulnerable until the Ascension itself.” Alan kept glancing around, nervous. Anyanka didn’t blame him. This situation was starting to make _her_ nervous, too. 

“All right. So this doesn’t sound like Lohesh,” she said to Giles and Buffy. “I don’t know about any dedication, but that thing about the delivery of killer crab-spiders? I don’t think it’s the same Old One as the Ascension I saw.” 

“Is that a good thing?” Buffy asked. 

Anyanka shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, at least it’s not the four-winged soul killer.” 

“No, this demon isn’t supposed to have wings,” Alan said, flipping through some of the notes he’d assembled for Buffy. “There’s some notation… something… snakelike.” He pulled out a xerox with an old woodcut on it. 

Buffy took the xerox and looked down at it. “What’s with all the little hairs underneath it?”

Anyanka looked at the woodcut. “Those are trees.” 

Buffy’s eyes opened wide. “A snake. Right.” 

“I believe this demon is called Olikan? Olivikan?” Alan handed over another xerox to Giles, who scanned it avidly. “You can do more research with that, can’t you?” 

“And I have to kill him before he turns into this… serpent snake demon thing?” Buffy said, waving the picture of the serpent around. 

“I don’t think you _can_ kill him if he turns into that serpent snake demon, Buffy,” Angel said. 

“Not without some serious firepower,” Giles pointed out. 

“Okay,” Buffy said. “So I say we kill him quickly. While still human. You said something about a dedication on Monday?” 

“Yes. You have to kill him before that, or he’ll be unstoppable.”

Buffy regarded Alan with narrowed eyes. “And what exactly do you get out of this?” she asked. 

Alan swallowed, and there was a darkness behind his eyes. “I don’t have to watch any more babies be eaten.”

Giles got a grim look on his face. “The chocolate bars?” he asked. “The night of the kidnapping?” 

“Yes,” Alan said. “That was Mayor Wilkins.”

“He _ate_ them?” 

“Fed them to another demon. It was horrible to watch.” 

“What kidnapping?” Buffy asked. 

Giles turned to her. “A few weeks before you came, Buffy, there was a mass magical poisoning in Sunnydale. In the confusion some six babies were kidnapped from the hospital, and never seen again.” 

“All right, that’s just evil,” Anyanka said. “Babies are innocents. Even I wasn’t allowed to perform a vengeance that could hurt a baby.”

“So how do we kill the Mayor?” Buffy asked. “He’s surrounded by vampires everywhere he goes.” 

“Not when he goes to church Sunday morning,” Alan said. He pulled another sheaf of papers out from the folder. “See? This is his church, this is the layout of the church, this is where his driver parks the towncar.” 

“You really thought this out, haven’t you?” 

“For years,” Alan said. “Things have gotten scarier. I can’t let it go on anymore.” 

“Why haven’t _you_ done something about him?” Buffy asked. 

“I have,” Alan said. “I’ve snuck monsters into his office, I’ve poisoned his coffee, I’ve even thought about getting a gun. But if he’s not scared of vampires, what could a gun do? I’m in over my head. I never asked for this! I just wanted health insurance and a decent pension plan!” 

“Did you get it?” Anyanka asked. 

“A fairly stable 401(k),” Alan said.

“Do you have dental?” 

“Limited coverage, but I did get my daughter’s wisdom teeth removed.” 

“Uh, guys? Demon?” Buffy reminded them. “So you said you’d poisoned his coffee and you don’t think a gun will kill him. Do you know what will kill him?” 

Alan shook his head. “Only that according to him, after the Dedication _nothing_ will. For one hundred days after the Dedication he’ll be invulnerable, and then he’ll become… that.” He pointed at the snake drawing again. “But that does mean he’s not invulnerable now, you see?” 

“Right,” Buffy said. “I’m going to go with the standard decapitation. Kind of hard to perform evil if you don’t have a head. I didn’t bring any of my swords, Giles, you got something?”

“Yes, I think I may have something in my flat,” Giles said. “But if you are going to kill a human being -- even a demonic human being -- we’re going to have to come up with some alternative plans.”

“Like what?”

“Well,” Angel said. “You’ll need to get rid of the body.” 

***

Spike was knackered. He’d spent hours and hours (and hours) with Buffy last night and through the day, and while they had slept some of that time, they’d just as frequently given up and had sex just one more time, which meant his arms ached, and his thighs, not to mention some sensitive skin in a few places. And after that he’d walked miles trying to figure out where Drusilla had gone. She’d been on foot, so he followed on foot, which made for a lot of walking. He tried to follow her scent, but it wasn’t like a human. The icy blood of a vampire didn’t linger in the air so strongly. Also, he got the impression that this wasn’t the only night Drusilla had wandered. Well, he had been neglecting her since… since she had… with Angel….

When he smelled the dawn he made it back to the house. Drusilla would know where he was, then, if she wanted to come around. She had to know he was looking for her. She had to. 

The back door was open. He was surprised he wouldn’t have to knock and wake anyone, but he was glad enough of it. He left it unlocked in case Dru came in, and opened the fridge looking for some blood. 

“You didn’t find her?” 

Spike didn’t turn to look where Buffy’s voice was coming from. It seemed like she’d been waiting in the dining room for him. No one else seemed up. He sorted through the jars of blood looking for the pork. 

“Spike?” 

“Is she here?” 

“No.”

“Then I didn’t find her.”

Buffy sighed and moved closer into the room. “Well, it’s official. I have to kill the Mayor or the town gets eaten alive. Giles was hoping we could find a way to make him reveal himself as demonic before I killed him. He gets uncomfortable killing humans, he says.” 

Spike grunted. 

“But it looks like I have to go at him in cold blood. And I’ll have to go alone,” she continued. “The only time I can get to him without his backup is Sunday morning at a church. That leaves you and Angel out. And the others for all intents are human themselves. I’m not even telling the boys what I’m doing. I’m on my own again.”

Why was she telling him this? He’d made no indication that he cared what risks she might be taking. The mayor didn’t concern him.

“Do you think she’s okay?” Buffy asked. “Drusilla.” 

“What do you care?” Spike said, dragging out the mason jar. “You’d just as soon she was dust.” 

“You care about her,” Buffy said. “I didn’t expect having sex with you to change that.” 

“It changed everything,” Spike said. “In case you didn’t figure it out, it was just when we… when you were… that she had her vision. It was about us.” 

“Yeah, I figured that,” Buffy said. “But she brought this on herself. I mean she jumped Angel, and then you tried to take her back, and she wouldn’t, and—”

“You think I don’t know that?” Spike took the lid off the jar and shoved it into the microwave. “You think this is the first little tiff Dru and I have had? It doesn’t matter how we fight, I love her.” 

“Is this different?” Buffy asked. 

Spike stared at his blood. “Yeah, it’s different.”

“How?”

“You can’t throw a tantrum if you’re not there.” He looked up at Buffy. “I just thought she’d try to kill you.”

“And when she failed?” Buffy asked. “Because she would fail.”

Spike shrugged. “Figured you two would work it out then.” 

Buffy shook her head. “You’ll never figure out what you want if you leave it all to others.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Spike rounded on her. “You’re going to make snap decisions, seduce demons, what did you think was going to happen? That I’d turn all lover-boy and fawn all over you?”

“Not here,” Buffy said. “Not with everyone here watching and judging.”

“It doesn’t matter what bollocks anyone else thinks,” Spike said. “I’m my own man. I’m a rebel is what I am.” 

“Maybe you are,” Buffy said. “But you’re always much more _you_ when there’s no one else around. With Angel, with the Squad, even with Drusilla, you’re harder. Your face is harder.” She came toward him and leaned against the counter, eyeing him. “Like it’s hard now.” 

“Dru’s gone. I can’t go carrying on right now,” he said without meeting Buffy’s eyes.

“I checked that you two were broken up,” Buffy said. “And I checked with Anyanka, who gets demon vengeance stuff. Dru can’t blame you for cheating, she rejected you.” 

“She can blame me for anything she wants,” Spike said. “She’s Drusilla. There’s nothing else I have to say, she’s Drusilla. I owe her my everything.” 

“Including all the pain she causes you? Including all this hate and fear you cherish?”

“I fear nothing!” 

“Being alone?” Buffy asked. The microwave dinged and Buffy pulled out Spike’s blood and pressed it into his hand. “Get your head on straight. Then you know where I am.” She kissed his cheek and slipped toward the stairs. 

Spike wanted to let her go. He tried to let her go. “Buffy?” he called out to stop her. 

Buffy stopped. She turned to him. 

“Next time I kill you slowly.”

Buffy nodded once. “I look forward to it.” 

Spike drank down the blood, which was a little overheated, but it warmed him through, so that was nice. He took the jar down the stairs with him. Angel hadn’t bothered making the bed, and the raven was out of water. Spike refilled its little dish. He should kill the wretched thing, it couldn’t possibly be happy. Or he should let it go — it wasn’t as if it needed to be held in captivity as it was. It could fly free and live wild as it was meant to do, not kept in cages by one of Drusilla’s bloody whims. 

Spike dug up some scraps of food and poured a little blood over the mixture, to keep the bird’s strength up until Drusilla returned.


	25. Well, Golly

It had been a nice sermon, all about the immortality of the soul. Mayor Wilkins had sat and listened avidly, occasionally taking mental notes for his final speech at Graduation, where his Ascension would take place. A captive audience of nubile young flesh for his new form to imbibe… yes. It would be the perfect venue. The pastor finished up, gave his blessing to the congregation, and Wilkins joined the others on the way out the door. 

Sometimes he wondered why he’d gotten into politics instead of religion. He had more control over city planning, yes, and honestly he’d been able to close more Planned Parenthood clinics and break more local unions to foster the general evil in the community than he would have as a pastor, but honestly, sometimes people would just walk in and _feed_ themselves to a religion. Well, he was sure a strong cult would develop once he had turned into a literal god. Maybe then he’d arrange for a regular feeding. Maybe babies. He’d wondered, whenever he fed those babies every thirty years to his pal Lurconis, just how they tasted. He’d had his share of human flesh in the course of his rituals, and it hadn’t tasted particularly good to him, but maybe that would be different once he had a demon’s taste buds. Or maybe if it was done up with a good cream sauce. He’d have to ask his employees. They might have a good recipe. 

He stopped on the way out the door to shake hands with Sylvia and Edgar Plame, who were still wearing black for the baby they’d lost in the sacrifice. He’d known how hard they’d tried to conceive, so it was a real shame their birth had coincided with Lurconis’s feeding. He’d bought them an edible bouquet when he’d heard they were one of the families who’d had a baby kidnapped. Always important to maintain strong connections with the congregation. He thought they had a nephew who was going to be at graduation, too. Well, he’d just have to thank them personally for all the hard work and sacrifice they gave to the community. Maybe he’d see to it they were eaten quickly when the Ascension came. 

Sylvia thanked him for his consideration, and Wilkins grinned as he made his way to the town car. His driver was there, waiting with the door open, her head down under her usual driving cap. Wilkins almost walked right past her without even looking, since Diane was usually so reliable he didn’t need to, but as he was about to slide into the car he frowned. “You’re not Diane.” 

Her hair was tucked up under the driving cap, and she was looking away from him, but it definitely wasn’t Diane. He thought he almost recognized the face. He was good at faces. 

“No, sir,” said the girl. “Mr. Finch said you were in need of a new driver today.”

“Alan? Huh. He didn’t tell me.” 

“Diane took sick just after you got here,” the girl said. “He had to find me fast.” 

“Well, gee willikers, that’s too bad,” said Wilkins. “Is she all right?”

“Fine, sir. Just a bout of nausea.” 

He frowned at the girl as she circled the car and slipped into the driver’s seat. She seemed familiar…. “Do I know you from somewhere?” 

The girl didn’t answer, and Wilkins studied what he could see of her face for a moment. “That’s it,” he said with a snap of his fingers. “Spike’s little recruit. Lola, was it?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah.” She shrugged, her tone coming lighter. “There’s still a few more days until the final turning, and Finch said you needed someone who could walk in the daylight. Since I still can….” She shrugged. 

“Oh, well, that’s real considerate of him,” he said. “And of you, coming in at the last moment. You really need to tell Spike to hurry up and tie you down, or someone else just might come knocking.” 

“Uh….” 

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Wilkins said with a little laugh. “I mean professionally. I’m not one of those who misuses a position of power like _some_ civil officials I could mention.” He laughed louder, and Lola laughed with him, sounding a little strained. She took a fast turn down a street he didn’t recognize, almost clipping a street lamp. “Hey, slow down a little, young lady. There’s no excuse for inconsiderate driving. And did you use a turn signal? I think not.” 

“Sorry,” Lola said, but she stepped harder on the accelerator. Wilkins felt the car speed up, and she swerved to avoid an oncoming truck. 

“Golly,” Wilkins said. “That was a close one. I realize Alan was in a bind, but are you really qualified for this job?” 

“He just said to drive you home,” Lola said, staring out the windscreen. 

“Well, you should slow down, sweetheart. You’re breaking the traffic laws, and I may be Mayor, but even I’m not above the law.” 

“Aren’t you?” Lola asked. “What about that law about not eating babies, did you listen to that law?”

That surprised him. “But you’re one of Spike’s, aren’t you?” She didn’t answer, and he frowned. “You know a few sacrifices must be made for the greater good.” He was only now beginning to grow suspicious. Really, he’d been in power so long, it hadn’t occurred to him that Diane, Alan, or Spike might somehow have turned on him. He supposed it should have. Particularly with his Ascension coming up. Humans with souls sometimes got weird qualms. “You should stop this car, young lady, and we’ll have words.” 

Lola veered the car down another street, making Wilkins grip the door to keep from falling over. 

“Lola,” Wilkins said, putting power in the name. “I demand that you stop this car!” 

It seemed to have no effect. Either she had some kind of protection, or Lola wasn’t really her name. She swerved down another street, and then another, not slowing at the turns to give Wilkins time to jump out. He almost got his hands around her neck a few times, but every time he tried she swerved, and her nails were sharp. In the end he decided to let her drive, and used the time to build more power. He was no demon like the Master, and he’d let his magical powers atrophy as his political power grew. He felt annoyed more than frightened. He really didn’t have time for this. He had a meeting with his landscaper scheduled for this afternoon. 

Finally she swerved down another road, and Wilkins found himself in a blind alley. Weren’t they near the Bronze? She angled the car and then stopped it, jumping out swiftly. She ripped open the back door and glared at him. She was holding a narrow, bronze-handled, double-edged sword in her hand. “Get out.” 

“I’m not going anywhere with you, young lady, until you put down that weapon and address me in a respectful manner.” 

“Fine,” Lola said. She reached in and grabbed hold of Wilkins’s tie, dragging him out by his neck. He had never before wished he wore clip-ons. He grunted as she yanked him out. She had strength, this girl. “No one said this would be easy.” 

“Now hold on a second,” Wilkins said, coalescing his power into a shield instead of into his voice. He hadn’t had to do this sort of thing in years. The vampires could all sense his power, and really after a couple of years it was easy to indoctrinate humans. Just introduce them to the evil powers slowly, and after a little while they were all completely on board. At least, so he had thought. He still wasn’t sure what this was. The shield helped. She let go his tie, and looked surprised she’d done it. “Did Spike think he could take over? Because really, there’s no reason why he and I can’t come to some accommodation. I was quite serious about that job offer.”

“Oh, and what would you have Spike do?”

“Watch for newcomers, head up the welcoming committee. Hell, he’s such a good touch with a party, I’d probably hire him for the reception after my Ascension. There’s going to need to be a nice celebration.” 

“Of victims to eat?” 

“Well, of course,” Wilkins said. He gathered more power into his reflection shield. Ooch, it had been a long time. If only she’d make a move, this would be so much easier. “Do you have a problem with this, Lola?” 

“I get that you’re expecting me to make a big speech,” Lola said. “I suppose I could make a bit of a stab at it.” She lunged forward. 

The blade never got near him. Wilkins closed his fist, rounded out the power, and Lola had turned the sword around. She’d already stabbed herself in the stomach before he even had to say another word. She struggled with it, keeping herself from being too deeply impaled. It would take serious strength to fight the reflection compulsion. That gave him his first real clue. 

He tsked. “Lola, Lola,” Wilkins said as he approached her. “You really thought you could manage this, didn’t you? You thought, I’ll just get my little sword and stab away, and then it would be over, wouldn’t it. But if you knew about some of my connections, then you had to know about some of my other tricks. Or did you?” 

The girl was struggling now. She grunted as she dragged the sword out of her abdomen. 

“Now Lola, tell me what you thought you were doing?” She didn’t answer, just pulled the sword out another inch. Blood dripped down her driving coat and onto her pale slacks. “Well, gee, little lady, you should have answered by now. Maybe you’re not Lola. Could you perhaps be… Buffy?” 

Her head shot up, her eyes wide. 

“Buffy, sweetheart,” Wilkins said, sure now. He didn’t know why he hadn’t put it together before. “Tell me. Tell me what you thought you were doing.” 

“I’m… I’m going….” She struggled against the compulsion for a moment, and then suddenly she rolled her eyes. That wasn’t the fear he’d expected. “I’m going to kill you and dump your body and save everyone in town from your damned Ascension,” she said, nothing but defiance in her voice. 

Wilkins pursed his lips. “Well, Buffy, Miss Vampire Slayer, you’re going to have a really hard time managing that when you’re dead. So now. Take that sword… and drive it all the way through your belly. Go on, Buffy. Kill yourself.” 

The sword didn’t move. Her head was down, looking away from him, and he dared to come closer. 

“You want to die, don’t you?” Wilkins said. “I can make you want it. Buffy, you want to die. Just by saying it. Don’t fight.” He bent down, peering into her face. “Just believe it, Buffy. You want to die.” 

She was smiling. “I don’t have to fight you,” she said. The sword snaked out of her belly and Wilkins didn’t even have time to step back or do more than widen his eyes before it was swinging for his neck. “I’ve _always_ wanted to die.” 

Wilkins’ head left his shoulders with a meatier sound to it than Buffy was used to. The head itself landed with a thunk on the pavement, and the body collapsed, twitching. Buffy let herself scream then, as the pain in her abdomen literally stabbed at her. “Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered to herself. How was she going to manage this? The mayor was dead, but the job was half done. The sword landed on the pavement as Buffy went to her knees, panting. 

Okay. Okay, she was going to allow herself a moment of victory. She’d actually managed to kill the really, really, bad guy. “Yay,” she made herself say. Actually, it did help. “Woo. Hoo,” she added. “Hoo, hoo, hoo,” she continued, breathing hard. She hadn’t expected the initial compulsion. She’d known the guy had magic, but what kind, well. Something had twisted her hand. Something had controlled her words. She was only able to subvert it because she’d realized when he’d made her confess her plans, it was really easy when she just _went with it_. 

It wasn’t hard to believe she wanted to die. 

Now she had to manage the rest of the job. Okay, first, someplace to put the thing. The car doors were open, but car windows were a thing, and a headless cadaver, not something she wanted witnesses for. She crawled to the front seat and pulled the keys from the ignition. She climbed up the side of the car and let that support her as she made her way to the trunk and opened it. Thank god, it was empty, or empty enough for her purposes. First she staggered over and grabbed the sword, then the head by the hair. They went into the trunk easily. She stopped and breathed for a long time before she made herself face the body. The head alone had been heavy enough. The body was going to be hellish. 

It was a battle of will to get the damn thing into the trunk, slayer strength aside. It was far, far harder than just killing the bastard had been. “Why couldn’t you be a fucking vampire?” she asked the headless corpse as she dragged it. It did not deign to answer. 

Finally she hoisted the torso up to the trunk, and it toppled in. The legs were easy to throw in after that. Then, to Buffy’s chagrin, she threw up. It got all over the Mayor’s suit. Well… shit. DNA fucking everywhere.

Damn. She didn’t have it. The _it_ was gone. She didn’t have it to dispose of this body. Why should she, anyway? She’d done the fucking hard part! And she had a team now, right? A team with vampires on it, who were used to disposing of bodies. She slammed the trunk closed and dragged herself back to the driver’s seat. There was blood on the pavement. Well, it was Sunnydale. No one would think twice about that. 

Buffy ignored the blood pouring down her leg as she put the car in gear. She just had to make it back to the house. Back to the house. Back to the damned house. 

***

Spike smelled the blood before the back door even closed. The scent washed through the kitchen, under the door to the basement, and down to where he was trying to sleep. He barely stopped to put on jeans, and was still drawing a shirt over his head as he burst out of the basement. 

Buffy was dragging herself step by step through the kitchen, using the island as support. She didn’t look at Spike, which didn’t surprise him. Her stomach and thighs were awash with blood, which was still oozing out onto the driver’s coat she was wearing. Before Spike could do anything more than be stunned, she was already staggering past. “Giles?” she called out.

Giles had been waiting in the dining room, and Anyanka turned the TV off just as the blood scent wafted up to Angel, and he came thundering down the stairs. “Buffy!” 

“Buffy!” Giles took Buffy by the arm and he and Angel supported her into the living room and onto the couch. 

Spike followed, feeling like he’d been punched. A ferocious impulse of _eat her!_ was warring in his head with a bizarre desire to protect her. He wanted to kill something — either what had hurt her, or her. It left him standing stunned as everyone else rushed around, asking what had happened, looking for the first aid kit. 

“But what about the Mayor?” Anyanka asked worriedly. “Did you actually get the Mayor?” 

“Yeah. Got him. He’s in the trunk of the town car. It’s out by the garage, I couldn’t… I couldn’t— gah! He got me to stab myself somehow. Are there any bandages?” 

“This kit is just for little cuts,” Giles said irritably. “My first aid kit is in the trunk of my car, it’s got real painkillers in it,” he told Anyanka as he shoved his keys in her hand. “Would you go get it?” 

“Oh, sure,” Anyanka said, and slipped out the front door. 

“You said the Mayor’s body is _here_?” Angel asked. 

“I was bleeding a little hard to play _let's dig a grave_ ,” Buffy grunted. She looked up at Angel with more than a touch of pleading in her expression. “Can you take care of it?” 

Angel held tight to her hand. “I promise.” 

Spike’s hand closed jealously. _He_ knew how to dispose of bodies, too. Why didn’t she ask him? 

Probably because he hadn’t said one word to her in nearly a day and a half. He’d ignored her all Saturday, Saturday night going out to look for Drusilla again. He’d known Buffy was going on her mission to the Mayor this morning. He’d done barely more than grunt when she’d come down to say goodbye. He hadn’t known what else to do when she did that. “I’m off to face the Mayor, thanks for… well, whatever,” she’d said. He’d nodded his acknowledgement, but why hadn’t he thanked her, as well? It had been some truly epic sex, he should have responded to her. He should have kissed her goodbye. Fuck, he should have gone with her. So what if it was daylight and he couldn’t, the only thing he could think was that he shouldn’t have let her face a powerful foe with unknown skills all alone. 

_She’s only the slayer. You plan to kill her once this geas is lifted. So what if she’s dying?_

Was she dying? Spike’s mouth felt dry, despite the blood scent fragrant in the air. 

Anyanka came back in with what seemed like an industrial tool box. “Is this it?” 

“Yes.” Giles was on his knees, carefully uncovering the wound. Buffy groaned as she shrugged off the coat, and Giles cut away the front of her shirt with scissors from his kit. Spike drew in a breath at the sight of the wound, which made him draw in the blood scent again, and he wasn’t surprised to see Angel flinch, as well. It was a thin slice, a sword puncture a little below and to the left of her navel. It was bleeding a lot. 

The sight of it gave Giles pause. “Buffy, we should go to the hospital.” 

“I can’t. You know I can’t. Any suspicious wounds like this and they have to report it to the police.” 

“But Buffy, this is an abdominal wound. If it pierced your intestines or any of your internal organs, you could be dead within hours.” 

“I’m a slayer. I’m strong.” 

“It doesn’t matter how strong you are if your kidneys have been punctured or your intestines are leaking,” Giles said. 

“Fact: I was the last person seen with the mayor alive. Fact: I was stabbed with the same weapon that cut his head off. Fact: Alan could up and turn on me at any moment, and the last thing we need is a paper trail leading to me. I can’t go to the hospital!” 

“Fact,” Giles snapped at her. “I am not a doctor. I know how to patch up an ordinary wound, even a deep wound, but I cannot manage damage to internal organs!”

“They might not even be injured,” Buffy said with a whine. “Just bandage me up and let me lie down.”

“I can’t do that! We don’t know. It would be like signing your death warrant.” 

“I can tell,” Spike said quietly. 

They all turned to look at him. 

“I could tell from her blood, if I can taste it.” 

“How?” Giles asked.

“He’s right,” Angel said, trying to take over like he usually did. “A vampire could taste the difference between tainted blood and pure. Kidneys, liver, bile, we can taste all that if the blood is contaminated.”

Giles looked fairly uncertain, but Anyanka nodded. “Vampire saliva is also pain killing, and will cause a wound to bleed more, flushing out any external contaminants. Some witches use it as a topical wound treatment.” 

Buffy’s eyes locked on Spike’s. “Would you do it?”

Angel squeezed Buffy’s hand. “You know I can—”

“Yes, I know,” Buffy told him gently, then looked back to Spike. “Spike?” 

“Yeah,” Spike said, as if there was no one else in the room. He crossed over to the couch. “‘Scuse me, mate,” he said quietly, nudging Angel aside. Angel hesitated, but finally stepped away, going to watch the proceedings from behind the chair by the TV. 

Spike tuned him out, and Giles, and Anyanka, and knelt down before Buffy like a supplicant at the altar, staring into her eyes. “You okay?” he asked casually. 

Buffy laughed, causing her abdomen to tense up, and more blood to leak out. “I’m great,” she said, panting. 

Spike took a breath and let himself vamp up — not difficult, with all this blood in the air. Buffy reached out and touched the side of his face, then closed her eyes as if waiting for a kiss. Spike placed his hands on her bloodstained knees, bent his head before her, and pressed his lips to her wound. 

It was hard to suppress the urge to bite down. His tongue slid between the edges of the wound, and he closed his lips around the false mouth and sucked gently, bringing up a mouthful of the most exquisite ambrosia the gods could ever have created. _Do not, do not, do not_ , he told himself, to keep himself from going complete feeding frenzy over her. Fortunately, the geas was stopping him, too. That was a good thing, but he didn’t want to rely on it. There was a lot of damage here already. God, did she taste astounding. Flowers bloomed and angels sang as he dipped his tongue in, again and again, lapping and sucking and filling his mouth with her. 

The taste of her filled his being, starting with his tongue and washing through him, more than into his belly. His lungs seemed filled with her, and his shoulders were tense with her, his arms tingled and his hands warmed with her, his hips moved toward her and his legs trembled as he knelt. Both Buffy’s hands arched over his head, and he heard her sigh as his vampiric saliva eased the pain in the wound. 

A cracking sound almost distracted him. Angel had clenched the back of the chair so hard it broke under his grip. Spike forced his attention back — this was so much more important than Angel’s bollocks. What was he tasting, besides the food of the bloody gods? 

Well, it wasn’t bile, it wasn’t kidney fluid, it wasn’t stomach acids or intestinal contents or anything impure. And to his own disappointment, the bleeding was slowing, and it didn’t taste fresh arterial, so the cut had miraculously missed nicking any of the big abdominal arteries that were down there. It seemed to have slid between the intestines and hadn’t impaled her deep enough to get to the kidney. 

Buffy hummed, the pain either gone or controlled, and Spike felt himself stopping. Either the geas, or his own desires, he honestly couldn’t tell. “She’s clean,” he said, and it came out a whisper. Tears were stabbing his eyes. “She’ll be fine.” 

“That’s excellent news,” Giles said, taking over Spike’s position before Buffy without realizing what it was he was stepping in the middle of. Spike staggered back, and Anyanka politely pulled out a chair that wasn’t broken for Spike to sink into. Angel had apparently buggered off upstairs. 

Spike sat, fighting off warring desires to dive for Buffy’s wound again, or to take over from Giles, who was packing the puncture with a long strip of treated gauze. At one point he asked someone for a bowl of water and a clean towel, but Spike wasn’t up for it, so Anyanka was the one who jumped off to get it. Giles cleaned the area around Buffy’s wound, treated it with an iodine solution, and set a bandage over it, taping it down with medical tape. 

“Do you think you can get up the stairs, or should we set you up here?” he asked after she was bandaged. 

Spike stood up. “I’ll get her to bed.” 

“Spike,” Giles began. 

“Let him,” Buffy said, her voice very small. 

“I’m not sure I feel comfortable about that, Buffy,” Giles said. 

“I said I’ll take care of her!” Spike snapped. 

“Spike!” Giles hissed. 

“Oh, it’s the bumpies,” Anyanka said with her matter-of-fact acceptance of demonic reality. “You still have your fangs on. It makes humans nervous.” 

Spike flexed his jaw, banishing his fangs. 

“Geas, Giles. He still can’t kill me,” Buffy said. “Please, I want him.”

Spike only glared at Giles, knowing it would come to blows if Library Boy didn’t get the hell out of his face. 

“You do anything more to hurt her,” Giles said, “and I will see you cursed until long after the end of the world.” 

“I can probably put you in touch with the right demon for that,” Anyanka said. 

“We have a truce until the geas is lifted,” Spike said honestly. “I won’t hurt her.” 

“Are you sure, Buffy?” Giles asked.

“I’m sure.” She looked back to Spike, her eyes wide and vulnerable. “Can you get me upstairs?” 

Without a word Spike bent and lifted her, carrying her like a new bride up the stairs. He shouldered open her bedroom door and set her on the edge of the mattress, then set about untying her boots, not worried about the door or Angel down the hall or anything. She needed taking care of. 

“Just lay me down.” 

“You’re covered in blood, love,” Spike said, setting the boots aside. He had her shift until he could take her pants off, and then took her sliced and blooded shirt in both hands and ripped it off her. She sat naked and panting, in only her bra, her arms around his shoulders. Blood had soaked everywhere. “I’ll be right back.” 

“Don’t!” she whimpered, her hands clenching on his shirt. “I don’t want you to go.” Her face crumpled. “What’s wrong with me?” 

Spike stopped and caressed her hair. “It’s the bite. Or the suck. Like a blood-junkie, you want to stay close.”

“Oh, I’m just stoned? Okay. Okay, that’s fine.” She let him go. 

He went into the bathroom and got a towel moist with hot water. He came back to find she’d already laid back on the mattress. Spike slid the blankets out from under her and then set about cleaning the bloodstains from around the bandage, off her legs and thighs, washing her hands of it. Still smelled bloody delicious, but he was more concerned with her than his belly right now. The bandage hadn’t soaked through, so the bleeding had probably stopped. He heard a step on the stair, and quickly tossed the blanket over her nakedness. 

It was Giles. “She needs to take these,” he said, passing over a couple of pills and a glass of water. “Antibiotics, and a pain killer for when your, uh, suck wears off. And this is to fight any diarrhea the antibiotics might cause.” 

“Got a lot in that first aid kit.”

“A lot happens in Sunnydale,” Giles said. “I’d still keep a pint of blood on hand if my source hadn’t been corrupted.” 

“Uh, right,” Spike said quickly. “Here you go, love, take your medicine.” 

“You all take such good care of me,” Buffy said in that little-girl voice she’d developed, which was doing strange things to Spike’s insides. She swallowed the pills obediently, which told Spike more about her state of mind than anything else could. She was trusting drugs from a watcher. Or near enough to one, anyway. 

“Spike, I need to move your car,” Giles said. “I can’t dispose of the Mayor until after sunset, and I’d prefer to put his car out of sight.” 

“Buffy has my keys,” Spike said. 

“Oh… they’re in my coat pocket. Just there,” Buffy said, pointing at her closet. 

Giles dug the keys out. “You sure you’ll take care of her?” he asked Spike. 

“No, I figured I’d eat her.” The joke fell flat as a pancake. “Yes, I’ve got her, all right?”

“I can still break his nose, Giles,” Buffy said. “I’ll just say _ow_ while I do it. We’ll be fine.” 

“All right. I’ll clean up downstairs and come check on you.” 

“Get these out of here?” Spike said, handing over the blood-soaked clothes and towel. “They’re distracting.” 

“All right,” Giles said. “I’ll be right downstairs until the sun goes down.” He left. 

Buffy finished the water and slid the cup onto the windowsill. “Is it really weird that I want you to hold me?” 

“Told you, it’s the bite,” Spike said. “I’m here.” He slipped under the covers with her and put his arms around her. “I’m right here,” he said as she snuggled up against him. 

She tucked herself up against his chest and took a deep sigh. “God, this must be dangerous,” she said. “Is this what the blood-junkies are after?” 

“This and the rush of knowing you’re being devoured,” Spike said. 

“Have you done this before?” she asked. 

“Not with anyone who mattered,” he said. 

“Again? Like with the sex?” 

“Yeah, again. And never for money.” 

“Hm. You’d be surprised how lucrative selling your body can be.” 

“You don’t seem to have liked it,” he said. 

“I hated it,” Buffy said. “But I did it.” 

She sounded more out of it. “You okay?” he asked, kissing her forehead. 

“Are you?” 

Spike thought about this. “You taste bloody fabulous,” he said. She looked up. “I’m under control,” he added. “Trust the geas.”

“I do,” she said. She pinched his t-shirt a couple of times, idly. “You promised to kill me slowly,” she murmured. “Would it feel like this?” 

“More or less.”

“Mm,” she hummed, nuzzling in closer. 

“You want me to kill you?” he asked gently. 

“Yeah.” That little whine was back in her voice. 

Spike gently touched her bandage. “Same place?” 

“Mm-mm.” She shook her head. “I want a new bite.” 

“Okay. I come up to you on the dance floor.”

“Ooh, we get to dance?” 

“Yeah, we get to dance,” Spike said, cuddling up tighter. 

“What are we listening to?” 

“Um…” Spike considered this. “Not up to the Ramones, are you?” 

“Oh, not today. Did Billy Idol ever do anything sexy?” 

“Uh, _Flesh_ _for_ _Fantasy_.” 

“Never heard it.” She shrugged. “It’ll do. I’ll take your word for sexy. Now what?” 

“Okay. So we’re dancing.”

“Just like that?” 

“Saw you on the dance floor and knew you’d be my next victim. Caught you with my eyes. You open for me?” 

“Oh, yeah.” 

“Okay. So I cross up and take you in my arms. We start swaying,” Spike said, moving his hips against hers.

“Ow.” 

“Okay, we just rock,” he said, shifting all his attention to her shoulders, which he rubbed a little bit. 

“Yeah, that’s okay,” Buffy said. 

“So we’re sort of dancing, but mostly just being close. The music swells over us. I start to kiss your neck.” 

“Do I taste good?” 

“Skin and salt still, but yeah,” Spike said. “And you smell like freesias.” 

“I smell like blood and iodine.” 

“Shh. You smell like freesias. I’m the one kissing you, I should know.”

“All right, then what happens?” 

“I bite down. You’re not looking, you never even saw my fangs. And then I give back right away, so you barely have time to say ow.” 

“Ow.”

“Good girl. But the pain doesn’t last. Then you’re just held in my arms as I suck and suck, and your pure ambrosia flows down my throat, warm and thick and pulsing.”

“I feel sleepy.”

“You want to stop?” 

“No, blood loss. Don’t I start to feel sleepy?” 

“That you do,” Spike said. “So we cross the dance floor and I find you a wall to lean against. Is that better for you?” 

“So you’re holding me against the wall?” 

“Mm-hm.” 

“And I feel like this? So glad to be close to you?”

“So close you never want to let go.” 

“And I don’t have to, ‘cause I’m gonna die.” 

“Exactly.” Spike kissed her forehead and brushed the hair away from her ear. 

“I like that,” Buffy murmured. She sounded half asleep, between the suck-job and the painkillers. “You know what I do?” 

“What’s that?” 

“Just as I’m dying I take my stake out and put it right through your evil heart.”

Spike chuckled. “Do you?”

“Mm-hm. So I slide down the wall into your dust, and we’re both out of this damned farce of a life.” 

Spike tangled his fingers in her hair. “How considerate of you.” 

“I like you,” she murmured. “Make me happy.” 

“I’m glad.”

“I’m sorry about Dru,” she whispered. 

Spike realized he could never have done this if Dru had been there. She’d have had opinions, probably loud ones. He would have had to leave sampling Buffy to Angel, and that would have been an absolute crime. Especially since Angel had never had the same control with a victim that Spike had managed over the years. “She made her choice,” Spike said. “She’ll be back when all is said and done.” 

“You think so?” 

“I know it.” 

“I hope so. I don’t want to make you unhappy. Just dust.”

Spike smiled and kissed her forehead again. “It’ll sort itself out.”

“Can I make you happy?” she asked. 

“You just did.”

“Can I make you happy?” she asked again, reaching for his jeans. “I know how to handle a stake.” 

“Buffy—”

“Shh,” Buffy said. She unloosed his cock and petted it, rubbing it gently, languidly, making Spike hum as she worked on him.

“Not why I did this.” 

“I like having control over you,” she whispered. “Even this much.”

Well, he was hard already. He drew in the breath of her — and yes, dammit, she smelled like freesias underneath the smell of medical tape and iodine, and he could still taste her in the back of his mouth, and it was so beautiful, and she was being so gentle. Too gentle. Spike slid his hand over hers and guided her over his cock, speeding her up, firming her hand, and she groaned as his cock grew harder, and slipped her legs between his and pumped her hand up and down, and there it was coming, it was building, he could feel his balls tightening, so he shifted her hand again to catch what was now inevitable, and with their hands laced together they caught his ejaculation between them, and Buffy smiled. “It’s cool.”

“You had to know that,” he gasped. 

“I did,” she said. “Still feels funny.” She slipped his cum over his cock, sliding up and down more.

“Do you like it, or is it unnatural?” 

“I’m not natural.” She slipped her hand away and slipped it, sticky, under his shirt along his back, so Spike felt fine with doing the same to her, marking her with his scent. 

“This feels natural,” he admitted. 

“Mm. Well, we are made to kill each other. Maybe that means we’re made to want each other, too?”

“You’re half asleep, love,” Spike whispered to her. “I wouldn’t try to think it out right now.” 

“I will kill you,” she murmured, and he could barely understand her. 

“I know. And I’ll be here for you to do it.” 

“Promise?”

“I promise.” 

She snuggled closer and her eyes were closed and her breath took on the delicate weight of sleep. Spike swallowed. Something had shifted. He wasn’t sure if he had lost ground, or if the battlefield itself had shifted to a whole new plane.


	26. Complications

  
  


Angel was trying to meditate. 

It wasn’t something he had done until that balance demon had told him about Buffy. It and the Tai Chi he kept practicing were attempts at balancing his being, demon and soul and self, and he’d only been doing it for the last couple years. He was not, he admitted, very good at it. His attempts to empty his mind of all thought tended to fall back into his brooding. He’d think about something terrible he’d done, think about how good that used to make him feel, feel bad about that, and that would lead him to another terrible thing he’d done. And then he’d remember with a jump that he was supposed to be thinking about nothing, force emptiness back into his mind, and then he’d forget, think about something else horrible, and he’d be right back to feeling guilty, et cetera, et cetera. 

When things had gotten too hard, he’d abandoned nothingness and meditated on Buffy. That moment when he’d first seen her and knew he loved her. Her blonde hair, her perky smile, that little fashion pop flair to her clothes, the sexy lollipop between her lips. That used to work. He could calm down then, knowing that she was his destiny. 

It didn’t work anymore. Images of Spike despoiling his innocent flower raked at him. And now the scent of her blood, the thought that Spike, that _Spike_ had gotten to taste of her. It had actually made him want to kill them both. And then his soul screamed and wanted out, and that was when the chair had crumbled under his hands, and he’d had to flee up to his room, shut out the reality of what was happening down there. And then, to twist the knife, they’d come up to Buffy’s room and murmured and whispered, and Angel hadn’t quite been able to make out words, but it was obvious that there was more than just a clinical blood tasting going on.

God, Buffy was probably bite-stoned, wasn’t she? She must have been suggestible, pliable as a newborn kitten. And Spike would take advantage. Spike was evil, he would absolutely take advantage. 

There was a gentle knock at his door. “Angel?” Giles asked. “I still need your help with, uh… the town car.” 

Angel abandoned his meditation and opened his door. “Are you serious?” 

Giles looked exhausted, little shadows under his eyes. “I realize what happened earlier may have been… difficult for you to watch, but I assure you, I stayed to the end. He did not hurt her. The geas seems to have prevented any dangerous impulses he may have had.” 

Giles absolutely did not get it. That was probably a good thing. 

“But I need two drivers to take the town car out to the desert to a suitable location, and Anyanka was willing, but upon further questioning confessed she does not know how to drive.” He paused and then pulled out the trump card. “You did promise Buffy.” 

Angel closed his eyes. He had promised. Before she’d gone and just given herself to Spike, he had promised to take care of the body. “I’ll get my coat,” Angel said, resigned. 

Was his destiny still in play? He wondered. Giles went downstairs, and Angel shrugged on his coat. He’d chosen that coat special. He’d thought it would look good on Buffy. He’d had this whole scenario planned out, where early after she’d met him he’d find some opportunity where she looked cold, and he’d take the coat off and put it around her shoulders. Maybe… maybe he could even have some wound he could show off, revealing his prowess as a fighter. He used to pull that trick with his victims, have Spike or Darla injure him just enough that it looked nasty, and then “accidentally” reveal all. It would have worked on Buffy, he was sure. She was so innocent, so pure, she’d see the gesture as nothing more than gallantry. 

It wouldn’t work on Buffy now. He knew it wouldn’t. She’d tell him his coat didn’t fit, or that she wasn’t cold, and she’d laugh at his wounds revealed, or tell him flat out to put his coat back on and stop acting like a bad romance novel. He looked down. The coat would have looked so good on her. 

He sighed and left his room, meaning to just go down and help Giles, but the door to Buffy’s room was open. She never left her door open. He knew. He’d checked. Not only was it always closed, it was usually locked when she was in it. He crept up and peered inside. 

Buffy had her bed butted up against the windows, with the light-stopping curtains they all had now, so it was pretty dark in there, but Angel could still see it all perfectly even without vampire night sight. There was Buffy, bare legs peeping out of the blankets, nothing but a bra on, wrapped around a sleeping Spike, content as happy lovers. Damn, they were lovers. Angel could smell it, Spike’s emissions all over her, the bed, the blankets. He _had_ taken advantage! 

God, poor innocent Buffy. What was Spike _doing_ to her? How had he even managed it? It was Dru, that was it. Was it Dru? Something about Buffy had felt sympathy for Dru, and… and… no. No, that didn’t follow. Maybe Spike had seduced her? With drink and lies and bite-highs and… and… but Buffy seemed so inured to those kinds of tricks. Maybe… maybe she and Spike just… got along better? 

Who on earth could get along easily with Spike? Drusilla had managed it, but she was crazy. 

He couldn’t find a why. He tensed his upper lip at the sight, and went down to fulfill his promise, asking himself why he even bothered anymore. 

Giles was not a natural at this. They opened the trunk to oversee Buffy’s handiwork, and Giles looked about ready to vomit. Right on top of Buffy’s, Angel noticed. Angel himself was merely resigned. The smell of Buffy’s blood, and the Mayor’s blood, even congealing for half the day in the car, just made Angel feel hungry. 

Giles carefully picked up the sword that Buffy had tossed in with the Mayor’s decapitated body. “I should keep this. Let me just bring it in and clean it a bit. Do you know anything about the Mayor’s abilities? He sold his soul, do you know if that was for his longevity? Could he come back?”

“I didn’t even know the Mayor was evil,” Angel said. “The Master and his followers never liked me. They didn’t share the names of their allies.” 

Giles frowned. “Well, we should bury the head and body separately. I’ll treat them both with salt, and we’ll burn them in the desert before we bury them. I’ll drive this car. Can you follow in the Citroen?” 

Angel sighed. It sounded like a long night. “Yes,” he said. 

Giles knew the desert, Angel had to admit that. First they stopped to pick up supplies — gasoline, shovels, salt, all bought with cash — and then Giles had driven them to the first of their three stops in the desert. First was the head, which they burned thoroughly, the flames green with salt. Giles insisted on breaking the skull before they buried it, which only Angel was strong enough to do. Then they buried it deep in an unmarked spot, and drove off to do the same with the body. 

At the third and final location, which was off the side of a ravine, Giles and Angel burned out the interior of the car, trying to burn away any of Buffy or the Mayor’s DNA. “We can take off the license plates, but that won’t help when they find the VIN number. Still, it would slow law enforcement down.” They took the license plates and Giles said he’d throw them into the harbor when they got back to town. After they were sure the interior was well torched, they kicked the town car down the side of the ravine, and fled before anyone might report the fire. They were in an isolated spot, but a fire shines out in a desert, and one as big as a car would shine for miles. 

It took hours to get to all the locations and treat all the evidence properly. Giles was clearly exhausted both mentally and physically by the time they got back in the Citroen and drove back to town. One quick stop at the edge of the harbor to ditch the plates, and then Angel drove back to the house on Revello Drive. “You sure you don’t want me to drive you home?” Angel asked when they got there. “I can walk back here. There’s still time before sunrise.” 

“I want to check on her,” Giles said as they went in. “I’ve never had a potential under my care be injured before.”

“Buffy’s not a potential,” Angel said. “She’s a slayer.” 

“Which you would think would make it easier, but it doesn’t,” Giles said. “Now I know why I left the Watchers’ Council. I couldn’t have managed this.”

“You seem to be managing fairly well,” Angel said politely. 

“I’ve buggered it all up from the get-go,” Giles said. “If I was her real watcher, I’d be dragged over the coals for all of this.”

“All of what? Her injury?” 

“Her injury, her defiance, her choices — my choices.” He shook his head. “I’ll just say, it’s a bloody good thing her _real_ watcher isn’t aware of any of this, or there would be true hell to pay.” He left Angel at the front door and went up the stairs to check Buffy, weariness dripping off him like sweat. 

_Bloody good thing her real watcher isn’t aware_. 

Angel tried to forget he’d heard that. It wasn’t his business. He was just jealous. There was nothing he could do, nothing he _should_ do, nothing that had anything to do with him. But… but. 

He’d happened to collect the mail the day before. There was nothing special about that, nothing important, nothing telling. He went to the pile of bills and junk catalogs, and lifted out the phone bill. Maybe it wasn’t itemized. Maybe he was just being ridiculous. He opened it. 

It was itemized. And there was one number from Cleveland. 

Angel didn’t wait to talk himself out of it. Almost feverishly he dialed the number, hoping the man would be asleep, and he’d get no answer, and could just forget he’d even wanted to do this. But after three rings, the number picked up. Angel almost hung up again, but he realized after a second that it was only an answering machine. 

“This is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Please leave a message including your name, business, and a telephone number you can be reached at, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.” 

Angel husked up his voice and tried to sound like Giles. He knew he didn’t manage it, but at least he didn’t sound like himself. “The slayer has been injured. You’re needed in Sunnydale,” he said succinctly, then hung up. 

Giles came back downstairs. “Buffy’s resting comfortably,” he said. “I gave her another painkiller and her next dose of antibiotics. Is something wrong?” 

“No,” Angel said, sliding the phone bill back into the pile of mail behind his back. “Just been a long night.” 

“It has, at that,” Giles said. “I’m going home to bed. Let us hope there are no more crises for a couple of days, at least.” 

Angel’s soul felt guilty. Well, there was nothing new about that. 

***

_“_ _Why did the morning dawn to break/ So great, so pure, a spell;/ And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek, /Where your cool radiance fell?”_

Buffy was still half asleep listening to Spike’s English toffee voice reading aloud. He was sitting up, leaned up against the wall, while Buffy lay drifting in and out of the words. It was strange and sort of wonderful and sort of disturbing that Spike was treating her as she had seen him treating Drusilla. This was the clincher. He was reading aloud to her. From a book of poetry, no less. She knew nothing about it, barely could even wrap her head around it with the painkillers clouding her brain, but his voice was beautiful, and he seemed relaxed around her. 

_“Oh, stars, and dreams, and gentle night; /Oh, night and stars, return!/And hide me from the hostile light/That does not warm, but burn;/That drains the blood of suffering men;/Drinks tears, instead of dew;/Let me sleep through his blinding reign,/And only wake with you!”_

“Did a vampire write that?” Buffy asked. 

“This one’s Emily Brontë,” Spike said. “I don’t know if there are any vampires who write poetry.” 

“It sounded vampirey,” Buffy said sleepily. 

“It does.”

“Wait, you said _you_ wrote poetry,” Buffy said, remembering. 

“No I didn’t.” 

“You did. You said your friends used to make fun of your poetry.” 

“No I didn’t.” 

“You absolutely did. You were drunk, but you said it.” 

“Shut up.” He looked like he’d be blushing if he were human. 

“You’re a poet!” 

Spike ran his hand over his hair, ostensibly smoothing it back, but mostly ruffling it up more. “It was a thing. A stupid thing I did when I was still human.” 

Buffy shifted a little, testing out the pain in her abdomen. It actually was getting lots better, or she was getting used to it. She moved her body a little closer to him and tested to see if she could rest her head on his stomach. She couldn’t without pain, so she sighed and rolled back onto her back. “What were you like, as a human?” 

“Bit different.” 

“You weren’t always called Spike,” she said, sure. 

“No.” 

She tilted her head back to look at him. “So who are you?”

“Who are you?” he countered. “Are you the same girl you were before you were chosen?” 

Buffy thought back to that girl, that vapid, thoughtless, brain-dead LA princess with her fashion sense and her school dances. “I guess not.” She looked up. “You want to know who I was?” 

“Yeah,” Spike said with a wicked grin. 

“I’ll tell you if you tell me.” 

“Do you trust me?” 

“No. But you don’t have to lie. I’m just curious.” 

Spike put the book down and slid down to caress her arm. “So who were you?” 

“I was a cheerleader,” Buffy told him, and he laughed. “No kidding. Being a potential slayer helped with the steps for cheering, gymnastics jumps and things. I was in gymnastics actually, as a kid, but I gave it up before highschool. I was on the school dance committee. I _loved_ the Ice Capades.” She felt sad, now that she thought about it, that all that was gone. “I was very _young_.” 

Spike saw her sadness. She could tell by the way he brushed the hair off her face. 

“I guess there was always the slayer potential there,” she went on. “Playing _Power Girl_ games with my cousin and things, superhero stuff. Usually the watchers find us before we’re called, so we have some real training, but that didn’t happen with me. They didn’t find me until after this uber-vamp called Lothos rose in LA, and I ended up the one chosen to kill him.” 

“You killed Lothos?”

“Why, were you friends?”

“Do I look like I manage to make friends with _anybody?_ ” Spike asked. 

“Actually, no,” Buffy said. “Did you know him?” 

“Knew one of his minions. Did a deal for some kittens some years back.”

“You like kittens?” 

“They’re delicious. We trade with them.” 

“You traded kittens with Lothos’s minion?”

“He needed them, I had them. Minions are all weak-willed, brain-dead prats, though, so.” 

“I probably killed him,” Buffy said. “I killed a lot of Lothos’s minions.” 

“No one I’ll miss.” 

“So.” Buffy gazed up at him. “Air-headed cheerleader. That was me.” 

“Lola,” Spike said, grinning wide. “That’s where she came from.” 

Buffy nodded. “Your turn,” she said. “What was your name?” 

Spike shrugged, looking shy. “Just plain old William.” He leaned back with his arm behind his head. “William the bloody awful poet.”

“You did write poetry. Can I hear any?” 

“No!” Spike said, too quickly, and Buffy laughed. “Don’t laugh. I was weak and scared and lonely. Being killed made me feel alive for the first time.” 

“That’s sad,” Buffy said. 

“Meh,” Spike said, and rolled off the mattress. “You still hungry?” 

“Not really,” Buffy said. “But I suppose I should eat.” 

Spike had made her toast and tea earlier, carrying it up to her with a look of diffidence on his face when her drug-addled mind had whimpered that he was being too nice to her. “Just making sure you’ve got your strength up,” he said as she nibbled on her toast. “Gotta have a decent fight to the death when you’re all better.” 

“And I can’t defeat Willow on an empty stomach.” 

“Exactly,” Spike said. “Just after lifting the geas, you know.” 

“Of course.” 

Now he collected the plate and cup and headed downstairs, and shortly after Buffy heard the front door open. “Buffy?” Anyanka called up the stairs. “Are you okay?” 

“Uh… yeah!” Buffy called down, and instantly regretted it. Yelling made her clench her abdomen, and it hurt.

There was some kind of argument downstairs, but Buffy couldn’t hear it clearly. A minute later Giles came and stood in the doorway. “Are you feeling any better?” he asked. 

“Yeah. What are you doing here? Aren’t you and the Squad getting ready to patrol?” 

“Yes. I was going to ask Angel if he wanted to come with us. Is Spike…?”

“Probably not patrol guy without me to hold his leash, though he’s taking good care of me, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“I am glad.” Giles sat down on the edge of the mattress. “We know he has some skills at caring for the convalescent.” He paused. “There’s been some development at school….”

“Oh.” Buffy felt bad. She had skipped a lot of school in the last week. “I’ll probably be ready to go back tomorrow, if I can move slowly.” She’d been able to dress and get to the bathroom and back okay. School wasn’t much more strenuous than that. 

“That won’t be an issue,” Giles said. “I’m afraid you’ve been expelled.” 

“Expelled?” That was Spike, standing in the doorway, holding a steaming bowl of soup on a plate with some crackers. “What did they go and expel her for?” 

“Well, I’m afraid that Buffy has had three unexcused absences in the last week, and Principal Synder did not take well to this, or your forged transcripts.”

“Does he know they’re forged?” 

“No, but he can’t confirm them, either.”

“He can’t just expel me,” Buffy said. “I mean, I’m a citizen, doesn’t he _have_ to teach me? Isn’t it American law or something that we have access to public school?” 

“Possibly,” Giles said. “Unless you had threatened someone or destroyed school property, and we could probably argue the point. But only if we had the resources to contest it. That would take time and unfortunately Sunnydale is, as I’ve mentioned, a bit of a law unto itself. Snyder was a good friend of Mayor Wilkins.”

“So he’s evil? Do I have to kill him, too?” 

“No,” Giles said. “I think he’s simply bureaucratic and callous. But unfortunately, he has declared you an undesirable, and until we find someone to advocate for you -- who is not me, according to Snyder -- the expulsion stands.” 

“So… wait. He told you about this, but didn’t even call me?” 

“I believe you will probably receive a call this evening, but I wanted to tell you myself.” Giles paused. “I could call your mother. I’m certain she would have the resources to--”

“No,” Buffy said. “Keep her out of Sunnydale. I’ll just be expelled.” 

“I’m sorry about this, Buffy. If we need to inspect the hellmouth, we’ll just sneak you into the school.” 

Buffy sighed. “We both know that wasn’t really why you enrolled me.” 

Giles looked down. 

“Look, I’ll just be the slayer. It’s okay,” Buffy said. “There’s nothing else I need to be.” 

“If it makes you feel any better, Anyanka was all ready to set a bomb in Snyder’s office in retribution,” Giles said. “She enjoyed having a friend in school with her.” 

Buffy grinned. She could just see it, too. “Then _she’d_ be expelled. No, it’s fine. It’s fine. I’m fine.” 

“Buffy—” 

“What do you want from me? I’m fine!” she snapped. 

Giles stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said, and left her and Spike alone. 

Spike finally set his soup plate down on the floor, and joined Buffy on the bed. “So you’re fine, then.” 

Buffy could feel the tension in her forehead, the subtle tightening in her chest that told her she was anything but fine. But really, compared to watching her watchers die brutally before her eyes, compared to letting victims be killed just so she could follow the vampires back to their nests, compared to being chomped on by demons or getting caught in ancient booby traps, compared to everything her life had been over the last two and a half years, getting expelled from a school she hadn’t wanted to go to in the first place should have been nothing. But it was something. It had been this little shred of normalcy handed to her by fate — or by Giles, anyway— and she’d sort of wanted to keep it. 

Buffy covered her face with her hand and took in a deep breath to steady herself. She was not going to cry over this. She should go with Anyanka’s reaction and be bomb-settingly angry. 

“What do you want school for, anyway?” Spike said. “You’re not a schoolgirl. You’re not for busy-work and book-learning. You’re something transcendent of that.” 

“What would you know?” 

“I was a Cambridge scholar,” Spike said, his voice suddenly formalizing to something that sounded like her watchers’. “Spent decades of my life trying to force their learning into my head. You know what I finally learned?” His voice relaxed back. “That I learn more on my bloody own.” 

“School isn’t just about learning,” Buffy said, though she filed away Spike’s scholarly past for later. “It’s about people, and being part of something, and being… human,” she said. 

“Guess that’s why I’m all done with the idea, then,” Spike said. 

Buffy shrugged her shoulders, trying to pretend it didn’t matter. “No slayer ever gets that kind of education, really,” she said. “Most potential girls are even taken from their families. There was one potential I met in Jamaica, Kendra? She didn’t even remember her parents. Her watcher was all she knew.” 

“You meet a lot of these potential girls?” 

“My second… third watcher. He took me all around the world. I met a lot that way. He… really liked spending time around potential girls.” 

“Was this the one that was fucking you?” 

“Training me,” Buffy said. 

“Have you really used any of that training?” 

“You’ve enjoyed some of it,” Buffy said. But she had to admit to herself, for hunting monsters, not really. Not the bedroom stuff. “Maybe he was just fucking me. But I did learn to follow his orders really well.” 

“Worth it?” Spike asked. 

Buffy shrugged. 

“Did you like it?” 

It was a vampire question. She could hear it in the edge to his voice, that the answer to the question would tickle some evil corner in Spike’s mish-mashed mind, the creature who would bring her soup and cried over Dru, and the creature who casually gnawed the throat of that girl by the gas station at complete odds to each other. 

“I hated _him_ ,” Buffy said. “And yeah, I’ll bet he was grabbing those other girls, too. Maybe not fucking them, at least not that I ever saw, but he liked to think he could. He was so gross.” She sighed. “The sex could be fun. I hate to say that.” 

“Sex is fun,” Spike said. 

“I would have preferred it with someone less… him.” 

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t feel good.” 

She shifted a bit on the bed. “You’re a lot sexier,” she told him. 

“Am I?” Spike slid the soup aside with his bare foot and then curled up more closely to Buffy. “Am I really?” 

Buffy wondered what that made her, that she’d choose to have sex with a literal monster, and wished she hadn’t had all the sex she had had with her own watcher, ostensibly the good guy. But the truth was, Carter probably would have fed her to the vampires in her Cruciamentum, too, so that made him as much of a bastard as Stiles had been. She was glad Kakistos had killed the fucker. And Spike, the monster she enjoyed fucking, was sensitive and poetic and seemed to _get_ her in a way that no one else in her life ever had. It was just he was also a blood-sucking murderer who wanted to kill her. And hell, after most of the other people she’d fucked, that was just par for the course. 

She wrapped her arms around him and started nuzzling his neck. “Would you make love to me?”

Spike made a humming noise deep in his throat. “You’re hurt,” he said. 

Buffy smiled against his cool skin. “Would that stop you?”

Spike’s mouth opened against her cheek, and he ran his upper teeth over her cheekbone as she kissed his throat. “Thought it might break one of your rules,” he whispered.

“You’ve heard my rules.” Buffy bit him gently, and he groaned softly. 

“God, it’s been so long,” he murmured. 

“You got off yesterday,” Buffy said, and then realized what he was saying. “Was Dru not…?” 

Spike didn’t answer, but the lonely look in his eyes answered for him. 

“For how long?” 

“Over a year. I don’t know. Since before we came to Sunnydale. She couldn’t… so she didn’t want, and I….” 

Buffy rolled him over and straddled him, but realized she couldn’t arch over him properly without the wrong kind of pain. She had to sit upright. Still, she could just about move her hips from this position if she was careful. “Didn’t want to push her?” 

“I couldn’t,” Spike said. “That’s what she wanted, to be tortured into it, and any torture would have killed her, so….” 

“So you didn’t get any at all, even vanilla, for over a year.” 

Spike closed his eyes. 

“No wonder you were crying,” she whispered. “You can fuck me. You can even hurt me. I don’t mind.” 

“Tell me you want me,” he said. 

That was what had done it, Buffy realized. That was why he’d gone along with it at all. It wasn’t just because she was available, it was because she _wanted_ him that he was willing to fuck her. And after however long it had been when Dru _didn’t_ want him…. 

“I want you, Spike. I want you, I want you, I want you.” 

Spike closed his eyes, then a moment later shifted, catching her and laying her down so he arched over her, face hungry and open. He touched his tongue to his teeth and looked down her body. She was wearing sweats and a t-shirt, so nothing particularly seductive, but he looked along her as if she were wearing silk lingerie. “I know where the chains are,” he murmured. 

Buffy breathed out a long exhale through pursed lips. “But that would mean you’d have to go get them,” she complained. And there was nothing to hook them to, anyway, the lack of furniture being Buffy’s room’s defining feature. 

“Ooh, pouty,” Spike said. “Wouldn’t want to leave you pining up here.” He brushed his lips over hers, and then lightly caught her bottom lip with his teeth. 

“I just… I want you,” she whispered, knowing she sounded silly and desperate and not caring. “I want you now. Just take this feeling away.” 

“What feeling?” Spike said, slowly easing her sweatpants down. “The expulsion?” he asked between kisses, as he let Buffy finish kicking the things off. 

“Yeah,” she said. 

“The undeniable fact that you’re not some weak human who needs their schools and their rules to thrive. That you are above it and beyond it. That you glow, shining through the dross like an opal among gravel, and that the mindless peons of orthodoxy can’t stand to have you walk among them, so they shun you. I won’t take that away.” 

Buffy let his lips dance over hers, but all that gave her pause. “You said you were a _bad_ poet.”

Spike bit at her lips again, then kissed down her jaw, her neck. “Where’s the damn condoms?”

“Um, I think there’s still some in my closet with the vodka. We went through a lot of them.” 

Spike left the bed and rustled through her closet until he found the bag on the floor, and pulled out the required accoutrements. He came back and set them by the soup, then kissed her proprietorially before lifting up her shirt so he could get to her breasts. He danced his fingers lightly over both of them before diving down on one with his lips, sucking and nibbling until the nub of her nipple stood up to attention. It felt cold when he left it, and Buffy felt she could have purred. “You know there’s another one of those,” she said. 

Spike glanced at, then did a double take. “Why, so there is!” he said with glee. He bent over her and bit it with his front teeth, hard enough to make her squeak. Spike laughed and danced his tongue over the nipple. She hummed low. 

“Take your shirt off,” she said. 

“Mm?” He sounded distracted. 

“Please. I love your body, let me see it.” 

“Oh, fuck,” he murmured, and sat up to free himself of his shirt, revealing that marble-sculpted chest. 

“Mm,” Buffy said, caressing him with her eyes. “Definitely worth betraying my calling for.” 

“Is that what you think you’re doing?”

“Well, I was certainly okay with that being the outcome when I decided I wanted to fuck you,” she said. “But I am totally going to dust you later, so I guess I’m just postponing it.”

“Oh, you are, huh?” Spike said. “Well, I’m gonna eat you. I’m gonna swallow you down. I’m gonna absolutely devour you, you randy little slut.” 

“Don’t call me that,” Buffy said, belying the words by opening her legs and wrapping one around his, leaving herself wide open and exposed to him.

“Why not?” That purr was deep in his voice, and it made her shiver. “We need more sluts in this world. I don’t hold with slut shaming, we need more slut congratulating. You know what you want, and you get it.” 

“Yeah, I know what I want,” Buffy said, sliding her foot along the seam of his jeans. “This evil vicious vampire who’s talking too much.” Spike laughed, and Buffy lifted her knees, shifting her hips so her pussy made a little come-hither gesture. 

“O-o-ooh.” Spike gave a little chuckle. “Is she all hungry down there?” 

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “She wants a hot vampire to suck on her.” 

“Who am I to argue with a lady?” Spike asked, and slid down to lick at her. 

He was gentle. He was surprisingly gentle, none of the rough man-handling of their previous tryst. He licked and sucked on her clit, tickling deep inside her with his fingers until she came, and then he stopped, no forced second orgasm causing uncontrolled muscle spasms. He slowly and determinedly let her come, and then let her rest while he slid his jeans off and prepped himself with a condom. Then he asked, “Do you want me?” 

“I want you, I want you, I want you,” Buffy whispered up to him, and he seemed to swallow the words like they were blood. He aimed his cock and slid up and over her, and she gasped, and not with pleasure. His weight put pressure on her wound. He read her face and paused, then backed up. “No,” Buffy complained. She _would_ manage this stupid thing! 

“On your knees,” Spike suggested, and Buffy rolled over and took a position on her hands and knees that didn’t put any weight on her abdomen, though it did stretch it a little differently than she was used to. Spike waited while she adjusted herself, and then rubbed her ass gently, just tickling at her cunt. “You ready?”

“Um, yeah, it’s good,” Buffy said, and then she felt Spike behind her and he slid inside her and the pleasure distracted from the pain in her belly. “Don’t stop. Oh, yeah,” she murmured, and a dozen other things as Spike slid in and out like a rolling sea. 

He managed to keep up the rhythm for a long, flowing time, until Buffy felt almost meditative with it, and her mind wandered. _He wants to be wanted. He wants me for wanting him. They don’t want me at that school… bloody humans, he’d call them. Stupid. Oh, it’s good. He feels good. I want, I want…._

When he finally came he didn’t pound into her like a jackhammer, but simply sped up a little bit, and then froze with a silent eloquence that spoke his pleasure. His hands on her hips, with which he had bruised her a few days ago, actually released their hold so they wouldn’t grip her too tightly. And then he pulled away, and helped her roll gently to her side, and covered her up, took off the condom and dropped it on the floor, then lay on his back, breathing deeply as he recovered. 

“I’m not Dru, you know,” she said quietly when he seemed able to listen. “You’re not going to break me easily.” 

“Ripping open your belly so your innards fall out would certainly put a wrinkle in your day,” Spike said. “Geas kept telling me I could kill you.” 

“Oh, it was the geas, was it? That’s why you were so gentle?” 

“‘Course.”

“Mm,” Buffy said, fondling his chest. The white scratches and red marks she’d made on it with the makeshift stake that had still graced his chest the last time she’d seen it had completely faded. It was clean and smooth and pale and beautiful. “Do you shave your chest when you bleach your hair?”

“Oh, shut up, you love it,” Spike said. “Do you shave your bloody legs, little princess?”

“You know I do.” She ran her hand over his hairless planes. “Did Dru like it?” 

Spike shrugged. “Thought she did.” He rolled over to look at her better. “Do you?” 

“Oh, give me a break, you know you’re gorgeous,” Buffy said. “You probably use it to hunt as much as anything else.” 

“Well, it seems to have landed me a slayer,” Spike said with a grin. 

“It wasn’t that,” Buffy said seriously. “Angel’s cute, too.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh, you know he is.” 

“Yeah, I know. Heard it all my unlife.” 

“If it was just that, I’d have jumped his bones, first. He was certainly very willing.” She let her fingers dance over the muscles in his arms. “You just make me happy.” 

“You make me…” Spike stopped. “Crazy,” he finally said. “This is insane.” 

“It is,” Buffy said. She gently touched his face, his nose, his lips, his chin. His cheekbones were so high and his brow so clean, the soft roundness to his nose and chin seemed almost in defiance of the sharpness of the rest of his face. “But it’s only a temporary insanity.” 

Spike reached his own hand up and started caressing her face in turn, his blue eyes drinking her in with an expression she didn’t know him well enough to read. It was something wistful and possibly fond, but there seemed to be a terror behind it. Or she could have been making up all of that. But then he smiled a little, and she could read that well enough. “We’ll just have to enjoy it while we can.” 

Buffy curled up, grunting a little at the pain in her belly, and let Spike put his arms around her, and she drifted back off as Spike went back to the book of English poetry. 

It was nearly sunset when she heard the front door open and someone shouted at her from downstairs. She didn’t hear it clearly. “Was that Giles?”

“Yeah,” Spike said. 

“Buffy?” came the shouting voice again. It was Giles. He wasn’t really the shouting-from-downstairs type. “It’s time for your next set of pills!” Giles yelled. “And Mr. Wyndam-Pryce is here to see you!” 

Buffy froze. Her watcher was here, her real, chosen by the Council watcher. And she was lying half naked in a bed with a completely naked vampire. 


	27. Negligence

Negligence. It was the word that kept tickling at the back of Wesley’s head. Negligence. 

All Wesley Wyndam-Pryce had ever wanted was to be a watcher worthy of a slayer. Not just some potential who might or might not be chosen one day, but an actual slayer, a creature of legend, the protector of the night, the revelation of humanity's own magic. 

That was what every watcher was taught. Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer. And we are their watchers, the witness to their power, the support to their calling. We are the framework by which the slayer defends the world. We are the watchers. 

Wesley had always wanted to be worthy of that title. But when the time came and he was selected right out of research to be the current slayer’s watcher, without any previous experience of a potential, he was more frightened than excited. He realized as he flew out to America that he had absolutely no idea of what to do. 

“Don’t worry so,” his father had said when he’d called him with the news. “I trust the council knew what they were doing when they selected you. And if not, it won’t be your problem for very long.” 

Wesley had actually taken the phone from his ear and considered slamming it down at that pronouncement. Had his father honestly just threatened his life? It was true that Buffy Summers’ watchers had been dying at a rate of one every six months since the girl had been Chosen, and yet to have his father so casually refer to the danger made Wesley’s throat hurt. But he’d steeled himself, brought the phone back to his ear, and said, “Thank you, Father.” After all, perhaps Roger had simply meant that Wesley would be recalled back to the archives if he failed in his duties as a watcher to the active slayer. 

Buffy had proven to be fairly self-reliant, in any case. She rarely referred to Wesley’s expertise about the demons she went to slay, instead diving in to kill without much preparation time beforehand. Half the time Wesley arranged for her to kill a demon he had heard about only to find she’d already dispatched them the week before while on another mission. She was glib-tongued, independent, often belligerent, and Wesley often felt as if his own father’s disdain for him was echoed in the cocksure American girl. 

So when she’d gone off to Sunnydale alone, and showed no indication of coming back, Wesley had simply... let it be. 

As he flew from Cleveland to Sunnydale, Wesley felt the weight of that negligence heavy on his shoulders. When he knocked on the proper door, he could hear the negligence in the echo of his hand on the wood. And when Rupert Giles opened up and stared, startled and bewildered at the sight of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce on his doorstep, he could see that negligence reflected back at him in the former watcher’s eyes. 

“Rupert Giles, I presume,” Wesley said. “Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I’m here to see Buffy.” 

“Ah. Are you,” Mr. Giles said flatly.

“You said she was injured?”

“I did?” Mr. Giles asked. “Ah. Yes. I suppose I did. Um. Would you, uh…” He stepped aside, but did not, to Wesley’s surprise, actively invite him in. 

Wesley took that as an indication of how rife with vampires the town was. He raised his eyebrow and took the half-invitation to prove he was not a vampire himself, Mr. Giles’s obvious guard relaxing only marginally as he did so. “Is Buffy here?” Wesley asked. 

“No, she, um, arranged for her own base.”

“You shouldn’t let her have so much autonomy,” Wesley said, looking around Mr. Giles’s cluttered flat. “She tried to pursue her own accommodations with me as well, but I insisted we remain close. Is she at least nearby?” This was misleading of him. True, Buffy technically lived with him, but as she had here in Sunnydale, she frequently stayed elsewhere.

“She, uh, rented a house closer to the hellmouth itself,” Giles said. 

“It seems as if these accommodations would be large enough for the two of you.”

“There were, um, extenuating circumstances.” 

“And you should tell me about them,” Wesley said, turning on the former watcher. “On our way.” 

Rupert was not very forthcoming, but eventually admitted the background. Wesley’s head was spinning as he learned that the former vengeance demon who had created the demonic disorder and no fewer than three bespelled vampires were sharing the accommodations that Buffy had arranged. “You’re telling me you agreed to this?” 

“It was not my place to agree or disagree,” Giles pointed out as he drove to the Slayer’s base. “I’m not her watcher. You ostensibly agreed by sending her here on her own.”

Negligence. “I expected that you would have the matter well in hand, Mr. Giles,” Wesley said primly. “Not allow her to endanger the mission with unreliable allies.” He settled his briefcase more comfortably across his knees. “One girl in all the world. She alone will fight the vampires. That is the way it is meant to be.” 

He expected something embarrassed or chagrined, and was not satisfied when Giles just rolled his eyes. “Oh, give it a rest,” he said. “You’ve barely even spoken to the girl, let alone know what she’s gone through.” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

“The girl needed backup. I and the demons have provided it. If she followed your precepts she’d have died the first day here.” He shook his head. “There’s some argument that she did, in the original variant of reality. I’ll take you to her, but I’ll not have you casting aspersions upon either her judgement or mine, do I make myself clear?” 

Wesley was taken aback. He hadn’t expected Mr. Giles to take such a harsh stance. But considering his status with the Watcher’s Council, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by anything the fool man took it into his head to say. “You have no control over my thoughts or actions, Mr. Giles.” 

“I don’t have to accept them lying down,” Giles answered. “This girl is a wonder. She’s strong, vibrant, intelligent, dedicated. If she in her wisdom is astute enough to know when she needs help, you should grant her the right to claim the assistance she requires.” 

_Negligence_. Had he been wrong? Wesley wasn’t sure any longer. “The slayer shouldn’t _need_ help,” Wesley said, trying to regroup. 

“That’s not to say she doesn’t deserve it,” Giles said. “No one stands alone in the world. Not even the slayer. She’s supposed to have the watchers at her back, and instead they’ve betrayed, crippled, and undermined her. What do you have to say to that, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce?” 

“I say it’s been a long time since you’ve been a watcher, Mr. Giles.”

“I say it’s been a long time since the watchers took a good long look at exactly what they were doing,” Giles said harshly. He stabbed at the tape deck in the dashboard of the Citroën. To Wes’s surprise, _The Who_ started blaring from the speakers, very loudly, and he could barely hear himself think through the rest of the car ride. 

Giles shouted up the stairs in a most unseemly way after he unlocked the front door. “There was no need to shout,” Wesley told him, and Giles nodded. 

“So sorry. She’s resting upstairs.” 

Wesley went up the stairs. All the bedroom doors were closed, but there was sound behind one. He opened the door just as Buffy clutched a blanket around herself. “Wes! Totally wasn’t expecting you. I see you’ve actually wandered out of your office for once.” 

“Yes. I hear you’ve been injured, is it anything serious?” 

“How… did you hear about it?” 

“Mr. Giles here called me, as was quite correct,” Wesley said. 

“Giles!” Buffy said. 

Wesley glanced behind him to catch Giles shaking his head, and then looking archly up to the ceiling, as if his head movement had nothing to do with Buffy.

“Oh,” Buffy said. “Oh. _Oh!_ So someone decided I needed looking after, did they?” she asked harshly. “Giles, I’m surprised at you. I’m fine. You knew I was fine.” 

Her tone was strangely stilted, and Wesley wasn’t as thick as he pretended he was. It had been a useful measure in the academy when fellow trainees had tried to harass him for being Robert Wyndam-Pryce’s shining boy, but in truth Wesley was smart as a whip. Giles hadn’t called him. Someone else had, and Buffy knew who the someone else was, and wasn’t telling. 

Well, it didn’t matter. Wesley was here now, and he knew his duty. 

“How were you injured? May I see the wound?” He took hold of Buffy’s blanket and made to move it aside, but Buffy snatched it back. Not fast enough for Wesley to miss that she wasn’t wearing any trousers, however. “Oh. Um. Pardon me. Allow me,” he said. He snatched up a pair of denim trousers from the floor and handed them to Buffy, who stared at them in something that looked like horror for a second before slipping them beneath the sheets and sliding them on. She had difficulty. It didn’t look like the proper clothing for a convalescent. He would have thought pajama bottoms more appropriate. Something loose fitting and comfortable, but the jeans were what was by the bed. 

As Buffy hitched them around her hips under the sheets Wesley heard a thump from behind the other door. “What was that?” he asked. 

“What was what?” both Buffy and Giles asked in unison, staring blankly at Wesley. 

“I didn’t hear anything,” Giles added. 

“Are you feeling okay, Wes?” Buffy added with considerable sarcasm. She had never treated Wesley with any kind of respect. 

“Why do I get the feeling that you both are hiding something from me?” Wesley asked. 

“Why would you think that?” Giles asked. 

“I’m not hiding anything.” Buffy grunted as Wesley reached for the other door and turned the handle. 

The door opened before he could pull on it, revealing a brown haired young woman holding a towel. “Buffy do you have any -- oh, hi,” said the young woman. “I was just wanting to know if I could use Buffy’s cream rinse.” 

“Anyanka! Yes, yes, I’d love it! I mean, it’s fine. Go ahead and use it. Are you taking a shower?” 

“I was about to,” Anyanka said. “And who is this?” 

“Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, at your service,” Wesley said. “Watcher.”

“Anyanka of the Obsidian Realms, Arashmaharr,” Anyanka said. “Vengeance demon. Or former vengeance demon. Pleased to meet you.” 

“Anyanka, the watchers are my keepers,” Buffy said. “You know. The ones who, uh… don’t like demons?” 

“You mean he’s not like Giles?” Anyanka said. Her eyes went wide and her face went white. “I mean Anya. Anya Jenkins. Perfectly normal human, let me tell you. I don’t have any powers at all, and that’s for a fact, and I… uh… um….” 

“It’s okay, Anyanka,” Buffy said. “Wes isn’t gonna cause a fuss. Are you, Wes?” 

“I….” Wesley didn’t know what to say. He had never had a demon just up and introduce themself before, not even a former demon. 

“After all, since this is Anyanka’s universe, it would be a real shame if anything happened to her. Like, maybe it would cause this whole universe to blink out of existence. And then there we’d be, the cause of destroying the world. That would be a real shame, wouldn’t it, Wes?” 

“I told you to call me Wyndam-Pryce,” Wesley said formally. 

“And I told you that’s too much of a mouthful,” Buffy said. “Would you rather I called you Windy?” 

“I beg not,” Wesley said with a bit of a sniff. 

“I thought you were worried about Buffy’s wound,” Giles said. “If you wanted to see it, I should repack it about now. Were you curious, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce?” 

“Repack?” Wesley wasn’t actually well versed in wounds. Giles went into the bathroom to wash his hands, and Wesley heard a whispered argument between him and Anyanka. A moment later he came back out of the bathroom with a medical kit, and set about unbandaging the wound. Wes felt a stabbing pain in his own gut as Giles quietly pulled serum-soaked gauze out a large slice in Buffy’s abdomen. It was clean looking, but huge, in Wesley’s opinion. “Shouldn’t you have taken her to a doctor?” 

“Not in this town,” Buffy said. 

“There were extenuating circumstances.” Giles explained the situation with the mayor and the police. 

“But doesn’t that need stitches?” 

“With a deep puncture like this we’re more likely to seal bacteria in if we stitched it closed,” Giles said. “Really, you should know this as a watcher, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce.” 

“I am a watcher. Not a doctor. It just looks as if that will heal wide without stitches.” 

“I’ll have another wicked scar, Wes,” Buffy snapped. “Doesn’t seem to have bothered the watchers so far.” 

Wesley sat on the opposite side to Mr. Giles and regarded Buffy. “Am I to understand that Anyanka is not the only demon in this house?” 

Buffy filled him in loudly, explaining the entire situation, that Angel was a vampire with a soul, Drusilla was a seer -- though she seemed to have taken off on her own -- that all three were under a geas to not kill humans. Wes noticed she didn’t say anything specific about the third vampire, Spike, but that she’d ploughed on regardless. “It’s working. And it gives me a finger on the pulse of the vampires around here, and it helps.” 

“But to work with the demons instead of fighting against them, Buffy,” Wesley said. He wasn’t sure. 

“I’m still fighting against them,” Buffy said. “This is just expedient, is all. And don’t tell me Watchers never keep pet vampires. I have a few wicked scars already that prove that isn’t so.” 

“We don’t keep them unconfined,” Wesley said, feeling embarrassed at having this brought up. 

“Well, ours are spelled up,” Buffy snapped. “They can’t hurt anyone.” 

“Well,” Giles said. Then he stopped and attended Buffy’s wound more. “No, they can’t hurt anyone.” 

“I’m unsure,” Wesley said. “But so long as you keep them in their place, Buffy. You can’t be getting too familiar. Not even with this… Anyanka. They’re demons. There’s no knowing what they may be thinking.” 

***

Anyanka was thinking something along the lines of, _Yum._ Spike stood naked with her in the bathroom, having been bustled there by a quick thinking Anyanka through the adjoining door and some fast maneuvers. She'd leapt out of her room at hearing Buffy’s squawk at Giles’ yell, and saw Spike closer to the bathroom than her room. “How long is that wanker going to be yammering in there?” Spike whispered. 

“I don’t know,” Anyanka said. “But it could be for a while.” 

Spike wasn’t often or easily embarrassed by nudity, but he felt quite awkward as he stood there being clearly ogled. He was used to other people being discomfited by his state of undress. He wasn’t used to them just leaning back and _staring_. “Mind if I take that towel now?” he finally asked. 

“Oh. I guess,” Anyanka said, handing it over. 

“Do you think he’s distracted enough now?” Spike asked, wrapping it around his hips. 

“I have no idea,” Anyanka said, still staring at Spike’s revealed chest. 

“Well… if he goes downstairs I’ll not be able to slip past him, will I? Can you stand guard at the door?” 

“Oh, sure,” Anyanka said. 

“Now?” 

“Okay.” She still didn’t move. 

“Anytime you want to move, love.” 

Anyanka opened the door to the hallway, checked both ways for the watcher, and then stood between Buffy’s room and the stairs. Spike peeked out. While Buffy’s door stood open, the watcher didn’t seem to be in sight. 

“You know,” Anya said low before he popped out of the bathroom. “If things don’t work out with Buffy or Dru, I’m always available.” 

Spike felt exhausted at the very thought. “I think I’ve got enough on my plate for the moment, love,” he said. “But I’ll keep your phone number.” He moved at vampire speed down the stairs and back into the basement. 

***

Quentin Travers lifted the receiver on his phone. His secretary had told him he had a call from Wyndam-Pryce the younger in America, so he pressed the button on the call waiting and said, “Yes?” 

“Mr. Travers, I’m glad to find you in.” 

“Don’t trouble me with pleasantries, Wesley, how’s the slayer coming along?” 

“Well, she’s been injured, but she seems to be recovering,” Wesley said, and gave a report expanding on what he had already informed Travers of, the vampire-witch in Sunnydale, and the involvement of Mr. Giles, the former watcher. 

“So Giles is making himself useful for once, is he?” Travers asked. “I was never sure about him. I’d thought sending him to Sunnydale would get him out of our hair, and then realized keeping him on the payroll was just a waste of resources when it became clear the Slayer was doing well with Naxon.” 

“Buffy? Was Giles supposed to have been assigned to her?” 

“He was on the short list after Merrick’s untimely demise. It was down to either him or Naxon in the end, either the old school or the talented rebel, and it finally came down to location. Naxon’s charge in New York had clearly aged out, and the Slayer was already stationed there.” 

“You… had chosen Giles originally,” Wesley said with some hesitation. “So he was not ruled out altogether? Was, uh, I not in consideration?” 

“Not at the time,” Travers said. “You did so well in Records. No point in moving you until after we’d given a few more of the more field-tested watchers their turn with the girl.”

“What, um, exactly happened to her other watchers?” Wesley finally asked. “I realize they were killed on duty, but what were the circumstances?”

“They were all the same,” Travers said. “They allowed themselves to become too attached to the girl. She has a charisma other slayers have lacked, probably due to discovering her so late, only after she’d been chosen. They permitted all sorts of intimacies that should have been curtailed. Naxon handled her best, repairing the damage done by Merrick’s coddling of her, but even he succumbed to her wiles, wanting to find out too much information before sending her to do her own reconnaissance. You haven’t had that trouble, my boy.” 

“No, indeed. But are you certain this more hands-off approach is best? Some of her decisions have been… well….” 

“What decisions are concerning you? I understand she fought off a potential demon ascendence?” 

“Yes, but she… she seems to think she needs assistance. She’s taken on a trio of demons, two vampires and the vengeance demon whose powers seem to have blocked Sunnydale’s activity from our seers.”

“Taken them on, has she?” 

“She’s set them up in their own base. She’s sharing living space with them.” 

Travers leaned back in his chair. “Two vampires and a vengeance demon.” 

“Possibly three vampires. She said one couldn’t be contained and she’s lost track of it.”

“Do we know who these vampires are?” 

“Actually, we do,” Wesley said. “Angelus, of the Lourdes massacre, and William the Bloody, also known as Spike.” 

“And the third. Was it Darla or Drusilla?”

“Um… Drusilla I believe.” 

“Mm. The younger one. Well, this is a turn up. She claims she needs help in this mission?” 

“She claims the vampires are assisting her to keep her finger on the pulse of the vampires in this town. The vampire-witch Willow is an antagonist of theirs, as I understand matters.” 

“And she’s already been injured abating the ascension of this Olivikan. Well.” This would be easily solved soon enough, no doubt. “Tell her it is imperative that she fight the vampire-witch as soon as possible. We can’t allow the creature to become powerful enough to be difficult to quell. Get Buffy on her feet and training again within the next day, and see to it that she sorts this matter quickly.”

“Shouldn’t she have time to recover from her injury?” 

“She’s a slayer. A day or two should see her right as rain. We can’t have her going slack, Wesley. The whole world rests on her shoulders. You should remind her of that. There’s no escaping her calling.” 

“Yes, sir. I’ve arranged to move into her home base, as well, sir.”

“I see,” Travers said. “Keep her on her toes, Wesley. I know you can do it.” 

“Yes, sir. Would you send me files on Angelus and Spike, please?” 

“We have extensive files on Angelus. I’ll see what I can find on William the Bloody. I believe there’s some junior watcher who did a thesis on him floating about, she can probably dig up something for you. But the most important thing is to get the slayer active again, Wesley. She must face this foe, and she must do it _soon._ ” 

“But if Willow is maintaining a neutral status, shouldn’t Buffy recover?”

“ _Soon,_ Wesley. If she’s already allying herself with demons, you know there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Just get her back on the front lines, is that understood? We have a war to wage, and she is our footsoldier. We need her active.” 

“Of course, sir. I’ll see to it that her training improves now that I’m back in the picture.” 

“And see she keeps her distance from those demons she’s allied herself with. It’s an ill wind that blows no good.”

“Yes sir. I’ll see to it, sir.” 

“Right oh, good man. Remember, Wesley. It’s for the good of all.” 

  
***

Spike was feeding bits of bread to the raven when Buffy came downstairs, carrying his shirt and jeans neatly folded on her arm. He glanced up and glowered, annoyed. He hadn’t bothered to dress himself, though he had spare clothes. 

He was feeling a little resentful of Buffy. Not so much for her telling him to _get out, get out, quick, before Wes sees you!_ but more because he’d actually just _done_ it. When he thought about it, he should have argued. He should have said, “Why? Ashamed of what we’re doing, are you?” and told the watcher what for when he arrived. But Buffy had seemed so panicked, and Spike was frankly well trained to listen to his lovers when they demanded something of him, and honestly he wasn’t sure being belligerent would put him where he wanted to be, anyway, which was in Buffy’s bed. So he’d done what was asked of him, but then in pitiful defiance he’d just elected to stay naked, and if that bothered anyone, they could just go whistle. 

Buffy blushed when she saw him, which was beautiful. “You didn’t have any other clothes?” 

Spike just raised an eyebrow. 

“I know you have other clothes, I bought them for you,” Buffy said, but she was still blushing. 

“Maybe they were in the wash.” 

Buffy shook her head and put his clothes down on the four-poster. “Look, I… I’m sorry about Wes showing up and ruining everything. It… it was… I wasn’t expecting him.” 

Buffy flustered was cute. Bloody hell, how was he supposed to stay resentful? “Well, it’s done now.” He moved toward her, and Buffy held her hand out, warning him away. 

“Stop.”

“What is it?” 

“Um. The thing is… the thing is, you know what the watchers are like. What _my_ watchers are like. I mean you know they’d be willing to just kill me….” 

“If they knew you’d….”

“Yes, that,” Buffy said quickly. 

Spike moved closer -- he knew no one human could overhear him, there was no one close enough. “If they knew you’d killed their operative.” He caressed the words, relishing in her kill even if she wouldn’t. 

“Yeah.” Her voice came quiet, and she took a step back from him. “But the thing is, I’m not sure how much, or how little, really, it would take for them to, uh, send a team after me. I don’t actually know what the rules are. I mean, they tell me something, but then it turns out something else is true. They tell me they’re there to support me and always have my back, and then they try to kill me. They tell me my job is to protect humanity, and then they tell me to let victims die to hunt the vampires. They tell me I’m the guardian of the night, and then insist I have a cover story for the day. And I’m pretty sure they’d tell me I’m not allowed to get involved with a vampire.” 

“But they send you out as a baby hooker to seduce them so you can kill them.” 

“Yeah, that. Exactly that. But I’m not trying to kill you, at least, you know, not right now, so I don’t think the watchers would be entirely keen on… I mean, they’re not sure about you even being in the same house with me, let alone… I mean, I don’t think they’d approve of you and I doing… being… you know… things that….” 

“Being lovers?” Spike said low, in the sexiest voice he could manage, and was rewarded with Buffy sinking a little, as if she’d gone weak in the knees. 

“Yeah,” she said. “That.” 

He moved closer to her again, and Buffy’s eyes flickered down his form and then straight back at his face. “But we are lovers. Too late to nip that, isn’t it?” He slunk forward. “We could nip a few other things, instead.” 

She took in a deep breath. “I should have known you wouldn’t make this easy,” she said, closing her eyes. “Look, we can’t have sex anymore. Not while Wes is here.” 

Spike stopped his seductive stalk. He leaned back and let himself pout a little, and Buffy rolled her eyes, which told him the pout had worked, and he had to hold back a smile. “Well, then, let’s just not have Wes be here,” he said. 

“I can’t just tell him to leave.” 

“We could kill him.” 

“Spike!” 

“What?” 

Buffy sighed sharply. “I can’t… even… nevermind. You can’t anyway, you’re under a geas.” 

“Oh, right. The geas. Darn.” He snapped his fingers. “If only there was some way around that… like… you know… that last time you killed a watcher….” 

“Spike!” Buffy hissed. 

_“Buffy!”_ he mocked. 

“Wes hasn’t earned that. He’s some… stupid… records keeper, he’s barely even seen a demon before. Being in this house is probably exposure to more vampires than he’s ever seen in his life. He’s… an innocent.” 

“And you’re a child. Or you were. Did that stop any of them from sending you out to die?”

Buffy rubbed her eyebrow. Spike reached forward and smoothed back her hair. “What do you expect me to do, love?” he asked her low. “Kowtow to some human who doesn’t even appreciate you?”

“The watchers, uh, appreciate me,” Buffy said as Spike’s fingers fondled behind her ear.

“They think they can control you,” Spike said. “I know better.”

“What do you think you’re trying to do right now?” 

“Seduce you,” Spike said frankly. 

“And that’s not controlling?” 

“No, that’s reminding you that what _you_ want isn’t what _they_ want. And I want you to do what _you_ want.”

“And what about what you want?” 

“The fact that what you want and what I want happen to be exactly the same thing has nothing to do with them.” 

Buffy’s eyes closed. “Please, Spike, you’re not making this easy.” 

“It doesn’t have to be hard.” He reached down and pulled her hand forward to his crotch. “Except it already is, isn’t it? You did that. You did that without even trying. And you want it, don’t you?” 

Buffy’s hand slid thoughtfully over his cock. “But it’s so risky. If Wes finds out, he’ll tell the others. If they find out… I don’t know what they’ll do,” she whispered. 

“You love the risk,” Spike said, “or you wouldn’t be shagging me in the first place.” 

Buffy gasped, and her hand closed on his cock, fisting it hard. Spike grunted, and his hips bucked. “Buffy,” he said. “Come on. Your Wes isn’t here. He won’t see.” 

“He’s just upstairs. He commandeered Anyanka’s bedroom, she’s bunking in with me now….” 

“That’s miles away.” 

“It’s not! It’s just a few hundred feet, and… and he can’t know, Spike, he just can’t, he can’t….” 

Spike had lowered his head to catch the scent of her breath, feel it warm on his face. Everything in him told him, _Kiss her, kiss her!_ but he wanted to wait and see if she’d do it herself. 

“I didn’t bring the… the….” 

Bloody condom fixation. He could murder her watchers for making her feel so unsafe she felt she needed the damn things all the time. 

“This is doing just fine,” Spike whispered into her mouth. He shoved his hips forward and got his cock against the seam of her sweatpants, pushing against her clit. 

“Oh, god, oh, god,” Buffy said, her legs spreading as she leaned against the wall. “You really, really didn’t make this easy.” 

“Are you really, really going to stick to it?” Spike thrust against her. “Wouldn’t you rather I stick something else?” 

“Oh, god, do it. He can’t know, okay? We have to keep quiet, we have to keep it secret, we have to… have to… oh!” She kissed him, wrapping her legs around him and thrusting her clit against his shaft, whimpering softly. 

“That’s right, pet. Hump yourself against me, go on,” he whispered in her ear when she finally let his mouth go to concentrate. 

“It hurts. Oh, god, don’t stop.” 

He’d forgotten her injury. “Just relax. I got you.” 

“I…”

“I won’t let you down,” Spike whispered. He humped harder, faster, pushing his cock against her, and he knew it wasn’t going to be enough, so he gave up, went to his knees, and pulled her sweatpants down, drawing her plump little clit into his mouth, tonguing and licking at it until Buffy’s whimpers grew even more desperate, and she bit at her own wrist to keep from crying out. 

Finally she let out a muffled scream, sounding delicious to Spike’s ears, and he gently kissed the tip of her fold, lifted her sweatpants, and went up to disengage her teeth from her wrist. “That’s just not fair,” Spike said. “That is my job.” He bit down on the same perfect half moons of teeth marks that Buffy had left him, but she stopped him. 

“Not there, not now,” she told him sternly, in a tone where he knew she meant it. 

“So somewhere else, somewhere later?” he asked.

“Way too visible there,” Buffy said. “And I have to go back up. Wes isn’t even asleep.” 

“I’m quite serious, we could totally kill him. Get him out of the picture and--”

“No! They’d just send someone else.” 

Spike growled and directed her hand back to his cock. “I’m not done yet,” he complained. 

“Oh, you’re such a baby!” Buffy said, and pushed him backward until he bumped into the bed. She gripped his hard cock and twisted, pulling and playing with it, and Spike lay back until it started to feel relaxing as well as good, and then exciting again, and then just _really_ good, and then finally he came against his own taut belly, and Buffy was smiling down at him condescendingly. “At least you’re a fairly easily trained dog.” 

“I am not!” 

“If you’re not good, I won’t give you more treats,” Buffy said, rubbing the demonic semen up and down his cock. She finally stepped away and went to the basement sink by the wall, washing her hand and checking her clothes for any spots. There was a scent which Angel would have noticed, and Spike couldn’t miss, but he was pretty sure no human would be able to detect it. 

“So we have a deal, then?” she asked when she was done. “We keep this on the down low, or it stops. Wes _can’t_ know.” 

“The others already do. They’ll tell him.” 

“Anyanka’s already agreed not to, and Giles covered for me. I’ll tell the boys at the next squad meeting, or maybe call Oz to tell Larry. They’ll be cool. Angel’s the hard nugget.”

“I’ll deal with him.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes,” Spike said, feeling suddenly gallant. Buffy shouldn’t have to deal with Angel’s absurd crush. “I can threaten him. With this geas, you can’t.” 

“I don’t know if--”

“Threatening works best on vampires.” 

“You’re right,” Buffy admitted. “Okay. We’ll keep going, but… hushily, yeah?” 

“As you wish, my liege.” Spike’s sarcasm was still palpable. 

Buffy smiled almost shyly, and headed back up the stairs. 

Spike sighed contentedly and slipped on his neatly folded jeans, which smelled of freshly-fucked Buffy. 


	28. Destiny

Angel leaned against the door frame and regarded the watcher. Buffy’s official watcher, Wesley, who had taken over Giles’s place in the dining room. The tables were organized, but even more cluttered than before, ream upon ream of faxed pages piled into organized folders, heaped on top of each other, Giles’ research and Wesley’s research vying for the limited space. Giles’ had mostly retreated to the side board, while Wesley’s was stacked pointedly on the table for immediate reading. 

It had been several nights since Wesley had set up here in Revello Drive, driving the dynamics in the household from tense to strained, making Anyanka nervous, Oz and Larry confused, Giles terse, and Buffy sullen. Only Spike seemed unaffected, mostly because he hid down in the basement almost all the time. He’d stopped patrolling with the Library Squad, though Angel still did, showing his chops as a demon fighter. Wesley seemed to find the Library Squad amusing, and smiled condescendingly when they arrived to pick up Angel for their nightly patrol. When asked he merely said, “You cannot make yourselves into the Slayer. But feel free to pick up stragglers; who am I to discourage enterprise?”

As for the slayer herself, Wesley pushed her back into training every day, making her stretch, lift weights, meditate. He was careful to choose exercises that wouldn’t strain Buffy’s wound, but he also wasn’t letting her rest much. It was making Angel a little uncomfortable, knowing that he had forced this discomfort upon her by calling in her watcher. But it couldn’t be helped. It had to be done to get everything back on track. 

Wesley looked up from the folder he was perusing and sniffed at Angel. “Yes? Did you need me for something?” 

“I just thought I’d check if there was anything I could help you with.” 

“It was Buffy who decided to use you as a helpmeet, not myself,” Wesley said. “She may have decided to trust you and your demon companions. I have not.” 

“They’re not my companions,” Angel said. He wondered if he could maybe get Wesley on his side, which might at least see Spike out of the picture. 

Spike had clearly no intention of fading gracefully away. Indeed, he’d cornered Angel the night Wes got there, dragged him outside by the neck, and gave him what for. It wasn’t the biggest fight they’d ever had, a toss off the porch, scuffle and a kick, and then Spike backed off. He mostly just seemed to want Angel out of the way so he could hiss at him. “I know it was you, you sanctimonious ponce! I _know_ it was you!” 

“What was me?” Angel snapped down at him. They were both crouched in the shrubbery in the neglected backyard of Revello Drive, a little bruised, but Angel didn’t want to have a dust-up/dust-off with Spike, really. He wanted him quietly gone, but didn’t want it to be his fault that Spike went off. Because he would go off; Buffy was nothing but a toy for him, and the moment things got too hot, Spike would abandon her. Angel wanted to be a source of heat, but he didn’t want to be blamed. 

He actually had it all planned out. Spike would leave, bored or indignant or after Drusilla, the details didn’t really matter. And then when Buffy realized Spike was unreliable, there Angel would be, standing staunch at her side as her defender. He wouldn’t chastise her for her folly in choosing Spike over him. After all, she’d been through a lot, and their destiny had been shifted. Maybe she needed this space with Spike to make being with Angel in a real, loving way, okay. Once Angel taught her what real loving was, she’d never want to go back. It was comforting to have a plan in place. 

Not so comforting that Spike had figured it out. 

“You think the watcher here will make it so awkward that Buffy brooms me and I’ll go off.” 

“I know you’ll go off,” Angel said. “You don’t care for Buffy. You’d _never_ care for Buffy.” 

“What the slayer and I do is for us to work out, you wanker. She doesn’t need her daddy called in to look over her shoulder.” 

“When she’s acting like a child, then maybe she does.” 

Spike hit him. Angel hit him back. Spike wrestled Angel backwards and threw him across the lawn until they were squaring off again. “You can’t tell him she took me to her bed.” 

Angel lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, can’t I? Would it piss you off?” 

“It would kill her.” 

“Now who’s being the melodramatic teen?”

“Angel, for once in your life, just bloody listen. The watcher won’t give her chores and tell her off for bringing the dogs in the house. He’ll tell his goons, and they will _kill her._ ” 

“They would not.” 

“What do you know? She’s the one who told me what they do. She’s a bloody conscript soldier, and you know what the generals do to deserters. If they thought she was pro-demon, they’ll just arrange for another slayer.” 

“You can’t know that.” 

“ _She_ knows that.” 

“Then she should stop.” Then he realized something. “Besides, what do you care if they kill her?” 

Spike hesitated, then ploughed forward. “We won’t get this geas off us if she’s killed. I’m looking out for my best interests. I don’t want to spend the next year as some neutered pup.” 

“Then do us all a favor and keep your mitts off her.” 

“Just don’t tell the watcher, yeah? For her sake if not mine, keep it quiet. She won’t thank you if you tell.” 

“And you’ll tell her I told, will you?” 

“I won’t have to tell her. She’ll guess. She should be figuring out any minute that you were the one called the watcher in,” Spike said. “ _I_ figured it out, and _she’s_ no fool.” 

“What does it matter if I did?” 

Spike lurched forward and grabbed Angel by the shirt. “What matters is she’s scared, you got that? _We_ don’t scare her. _Willow_ doesn’t scare her. The bloody forces of darkness don’t scare that chit, but those watchers? Those blokes have her bricking it.” 

“Buffy’s not scared of anything.” 

“It’s sommat she can’t fight. It’s not demon, it’s human, and it’s ugly, and it’s wrecked her life more than the demons ever did. You’ve already mucked it up. So leave it be now, yeah? Just don’t open your gob. You’re good at that, mysterious bugger that you like to play. Play it now.” 

“You realize you just gave me a weapon.” 

“It can only be used against her, mate. I’m trusting you still think you care for the chit, even if you have a ballsed up way of showing it.”

Angel tilted his head back and used his height. He was taller than Spike, older than Spike, better than Spike. It didn’t take much to have the high ground. “I’ll think about it.” 

“Fine,” Spike said. Then he lashed out and punched Angel one more time. Angel hit him back. They traded a few blows until Spike was punched across the yard again, and when he picked himself up, did not come back for another round. “Wanker,” he muttered as he slipped back inside. 

Angel felt he’d won that battle, but Spike was winning the war. It was time to get another on Angel’s side. “Spike is… well, he just is,” Angel told Wesley. “And as for Anyanka….” He shrugged. “She’s ruined my life. I’d just as soon she was elsewhere.” 

“So you admit you are not allied closely with these other demons?” Wesley asked. 

“It’s hard to trust them,” Angel said. “They don’t have souls.” 

“Ah, yes. And you claim that you do.”

“Giles told you about me?” 

“No, I’ve been reading up on, you,” Wesley said. He gestured to a pile of thick folders on the table. “It would seem you’ve had quite the storied life.” 

“Things changed for me,” Angel said. 

“When you were cursed with a soul,” Wesley said. “It awakened your moral compass and turned you into a force for good?” 

Angel opened his mouth. The truth was, no, it hadn’t. He hadn’t done anything truly good for decades. It was Buffy herself who had done that, her existence, and the promise that one day she could set him on the path of redemption. “Do you know anything about the Powers?” he asked instead. 

“The powers?” Wesley frowned. “Do you mean the higher Powers, who arrange the dictates of fate?” 

“Yeah, them,” Angel said. “They have a plan for me. They told me so, though a demon, whose purpose was to create balance in the world. I was meant to join up with the Slayer here in Sunnydale, and start on the path to my destiny.”

“Destiny?” Wesley’s frown deepened. “Are you claiming you have a destiny as dictated by the Powers That Be? As if you were a slayer yourself?” 

“I don’t know,” Angel said. “It was just… that I was supposed to meet with Buffy, and we were destined to be together. To fight the forces of darkness together,” he amended, unsure how Wesley would take the idea that they were destined to be lovers. If indeed they were destined to be lovers, a supposition that had never occurred to Angel until recently, that maybe Whistler hadn’t meant them to be lovers when he introduced Buffy to Angel. He had certainly hinted that they could be, when he suggested Angel go to her, and that Buffy was _cuter_ than the last slayer had been, as Angel had come back to him full of love for the young girl who had just been Chosen. Whistler hadn’t discouraged his love for Buffy. Though he’d never outright said that Buffy was destined to be his love…. 

“ _Were_ destined?” Wesley asked. “Not now?”

“Well, now, but late. Anyanka’s curse, or wish, or whatever it was. Giles did tell you?” 

“Yes, that it blocked Sunnydale from the Watchers’ seers and thus kept the awakening of the Master and now this vampire-witch Willow from our knowledge. We should have sent the slayer here years ago.” 

“Exactly,” Angel said. “And we were meant to meet up here, and only now is that destiny finally playing out.” 

“Oh, no,” Wesley said. “All indications are that any prophecies or fated events which were determined no longer apply to this timeline.” He turned back to his papers. “Whatever is playing out now is no longer your slated destiny.” He smiled at Angel and added, “So that’s comforting, isn’t it?” 

Angel felt sick. “Comforting?” 

“Well, master of our own fate, that sort of thing. Always refreshing to know you can choose when and how you’ll make your mark on the world.” 

“But… but destiny is… isn’t that what the Slayer is all about? She is chosen by the Powers and they can choose her companions?” 

“But the Powers’ decisions have already been entirely circumvented by the wish that Anyanka cast. The Watchers’ seers are all over the place now, reframing some prophecies, dismissing others. It’s become nearly impossible to assess who the next slayer will be, for example, and we usually have that locked down. We had originally thought it would be a young potential in Jamaica, but now that prophecy is completely useless. So you see, I’m certain your destiny has been freed as well.” His smile broadened. “You may do as you please.” 

Angel swallowed. He had never believed in destiny before he’d seen Buffy. Then she became his destiny, his purpose, his existence. And now he was cut loose from that, forever? Wesley seemed to think he was “freed” but instead he just felt uprooted, directionless, forsaken. 

“I… I need… um….” Angel gestured behind himself and sidled out of the room. He’d wanted to have a long talk with Wesley about the soul and goodness, and what it was to be a souled vampire as opposed to one without a soul. He’d meant to get Wesley to concede that the soul made Angel basically human, laying the groundwork for the Watchers to be okay with Angel as Buffy’s paramour, once she’d gotten Spike out of her system and was ready to move on. Instead he not only felt less human, but his destiny had been ripped out from underneath him, and he had nothing to stand on. 

_I don’t know what to do,_ Angel thought, feeling desperate. _I don’t know what to do!_

He went out into the night, feeling backwards and strange, as if he had just been born, or maybe just gotten the soul again, and everything was weird and twisted and broken. His path was gone, his destiny was shattered. Buffy had been telling him this ever since she’d met him, that his destiny was over, and good riddance to it, but he hadn’t believed it. He couldn’t have devoted nearly three years to putting himself together as a hero for Buffy only for Buffy to suddenly have been taken off the table, that was absurd! He was meant for Buffy, Buffy was meant for him, he had a path, a route, he had a destiny! He had to have a destiny, otherwise…. 

Otherwise it was all for nothing. 

All the years of slaughter. All the death. All the heartbreak. All the horror. All the torment. All the loss. All the years of giving up on himself and eating rats. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, “No!” He shouted the word to the echoing night, and he heard a sinister laughter echo back from the darkness. For a single, mad second he thought it was fate laughing at him, but then he realized he’d had an audience. 

“Dru,” he said, turning to her laughter. 

“Have you broke yet?” she asked. She wore a white dress, which was not what she’d run away in, and she slid like a ghost from around the corner of a privacy fence around one of the neighbor’s houses. “Oh, no. Still clinging on by your fingertips to the edge of the precipice. It won’t feel so high from the bottom, you know.” 

“What are you doing here? Come back to the house, Spike needs you.” 

“Spike needs many, many things,” she said, sliding to a tree and swinging around it, as if she were a maiden on a Sunday picnic. “He needs to understand. He doesn’t yet. No more than you do.” 

Angel went to her. “Spike loves you,” he said. If Drusilla came back, that would throw water on the heat between the slayer and Spike, sure enough. 

“Spike loves so easily and so harshly,” Drusilla said. “I’ve had to give up the thought of it all. It hurts to think too much on it.” She swung forward and caressed Angel’s cheek. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking on it?” 

“Dru, I….” Angel wondered if she thought that somehow he was going to run off with her. “What we did was a mistake.” 

“Mistake. Mistakes! To take a miss, and take her beyond, to miss the miss with what you miss? Ah, yes, Angel, my love, a mistake takes misses from lust to dust.”

He heard something in her tone. “Have you had a vision?” He would cling to any straw in the flood now. _Freedom_ oppressed him more than his destiny ever had. 

“Where is she, my Angel?” Drusilla asked. “I see dreams and paths and nasties in the wings. I see my grandmummy Darla dancing in the darkness, I see her called back to this plane. I see us with her.” 

“Darla?” For a moment a hope surged in Angel’s breast, and then it faded again. Drusilla was a seer, had visions and powers, but she was mad. He’d made her mad because it was beautiful, and because it was fun, and her own visions had told her it was inevitable. In a way, his toying with Drusilla had been his first brush with destiny. He saw her, and wanted her, and she saw that he wanted her, and once she saw that, it was inevitable, wasn’t it? She saw all he would do to her. And maybe she saw something now? 

Drusilla took both Angel’s hands and spun him around in a dance. “Isn’t it just the way?” she said. “There’s a pack, a nest, a horde, in Los Angeles. A nest of spiders, weaving their webs around the city, demon lawyers, hunting for their next meal.” 

“What’s that got to do with me?” 

“They don’t know you yet. Once they do, they’ll want you, my darling boy. Dear boy. Dear Angelus. My own sweet Daddy, they’ll love you so.” 

“There’s a demon law firm that wants me in LA?” 

“No,” Drusilla said. “There’s a demon law firm that wants everything. Don’t you think it would be grand if it wanted you?” 

It was a path. But it was a path diametrically opposed to Buffy here in Sunnydale. “No, Dru. I don’t think it would be.” 

“I found them. Or they found me. That’s why I left, to find the path. They know how to bring a vampire back from dust,” Drusilla persisted. “They know how to draw the Master’s child back from the darkness, to put her in a body, to bring her back, to save her.” Drusilla leaned forward and whispered in Angel’s ear. “They could bring back Darla.” 

Angel felt a thrill run through him at the thought. To give up on Buffy would be a wrench, but to possibly gain back Darla? “It’s impossible.” 

“They specialize in the impossible. They know the paths between the planes, the roads between heavens and hells. Believe me, my Angel, it’s as possible as blood rain and Christmas.”

Maybe it was. Maybe it _was_. But that didn’t mean it would work. “She wouldn’t want me.” 

“If you saved her, she might,” Drusilla said. “It’s what she’s always wanted. To be saved.” 

Angel thought about it. It was a whole list of maybes… but wasn’t that what his destiny had always been? Every hint of earning Buffy had been a list of maybes. And those maybes had become maybe not. But if one destiny was broken, maybe he could find another? Maybe his destiny was… not Buffy. 

He didn’t dare hope. It was impossible, anyway, Dru was raving. “I won’t listen to you,” Angel said. “You set this going. You turned Buffy away from me, you made it impossible between us.” 

“Destiny had already been rewritten,” Drusilla said. “But I still see shadows. I still see _her._ Our own Darla, Angelus, back in our arms again. I see her.” 

Angel backed away. “I don’t believe you. I _don’t!_ ” He turned his back on her and ran, back to Buffy’s house, back to the destiny he’d chosen. 

_But if it’s destiny, did you really choose it?_

No, stop, stop thinking like that! He loved Buffy. He _loved_ her.

She was in the kitchen, with Spike. He was microwaving some blood, and Buffy was laughing about something he’d said. Glancing behind them Angel saw the dining room was empty, the lights off, so it seemed Wesley had gone upstairs to bed. Probably the only reason Spike was up out of the basement. 

“I thought you’d finished patrolling?” Buffy asked. 

“Was just, uh, out for a walk,” Angel said. 

Spike looked at him, and his nostrils widened. Suddenly he stabbed off the microwave and stepped forward, sniffing deeply. “Where is she?” he asked.

Angel didn’t even ask who. Drusilla had touched him and caressed him. Spike knew her scent. “Just down the street.” 

Spike ran out the door so fast he left it swinging. Buffy sighed and went to close it. 

“Aren’t you mad?” Angel asked. 

“At what?” 

“At Spike. Running off to Dru like what you have is nothing?” 

“What we have may be nothing,” Buffy said. “I didn’t take up with Spike to have an epic love. Just… to do it.” 

Angel was too anguished to realize that what he was doing was stupid. He reached forward and clung to Buffy, holding her arms, gazing into her face. “Tell me you don’t love him,” he insisted. 

“It doesn’t matter if I love him or not,” Buffy said, her voice toned low so it wouldn’t carry. “That’s not what it’s about.” 

Angel let her go, staggering away as if she’d struck him. “What else can it be about?” 

“I wanted him,” Buffy said simply. “You’re a vampire. You must have some idea about want.” 

Angel’s head sank. He couldn’t take this. “Why, why would a twisted destiny turn you to _him?_ ” 

“Maybe our destinies weren’t so far apart to start with,” Buffy said. “Maybe a twist was all it took.” She shrugged. “You really want to know why I turned to Spike?” Angel stared at her, desperate to know. “He makes me _happy_. You with all your drama and your destiny and your stalking didn’t. And Angel, I know you called Wes. There’s no one else it could have been. It won’t stop me and Spike. Only we can do that.”

“But he’s off with Drusilla _right now_.” 

“And he’s doing that. You’re not. She’s not. And fine. I took up with Spike _knowing_ Dru was in the picture.” 

“How is that right?” 

“How is it wrong?” Buffy asked. 

“You said me being with Dru, having her cheat on Spike, you said that was wrong.” 

“I said it was a human kind of evil,” Buffy said. “What Spike and I are doing is a demonic kind of good. Maybe he’ll go back to Dru, maybe he won’t. We won’t know what happens until I win this fight with Willow, and the geas is off. Maybe I’ll lose this fight. God knows, every slayer has an expiration date. It's not about love, and it’s not about destiny, and that’s what makes it good for me. For _me_.” She shrugged. “Spike is something I’m doing for _me._ For once.” She had a dark humor in her tone. “You know, maybe you should do something for you.” 

“Buffy….” 

“I don’t have the energy to be mad at you, Angel. Wes has me stretched out until every muscle is aching. You’ve been fighting demons and chasing destiny, and you’ve been doing it all _for me_ , right?” 

He wasn’t sure anymore. 

“I don’t want you,” she said. “Go do something for yourself.” 

Angel stared at her. “I would have loved you forever.” 

Buffy gazed back, stare for stare. “Slayers don’t live _forever_.” 

Angel backed away, as if she were holding a cross on him, though she was perfectly still, and her face was neutral. She was so beautiful, and so harsh, and so, so far away from him. He struck the door and stopped. What was he doing? _What was he going to do?_

He closed his eyes on her and turned away, her image lingering in his vision as if from a bright light. He stepped out onto the porch and stared into the night. 

_What am I going to do?_

  
  


***

Spike called out as he went from house to house, trying to catch the scent. “Drusilla! Dru!” He didn’t care if it woke the neighbors. This was too important. “Dru!” 

He found her playing with the sand in a sandbox in a yard with a children’s playhouse in it, with a slide and everything. Small and for private use, it still didn’t surprise him that Drusilla had gone to a children’s play yard. 

Dru smiled when she saw him, but she turned her face away. “Dru,” Spike said.

“The blood’s treated you well,” Drusilla said, scooping sand into a plastic bucket. “How does her blood taste?” 

There were no words for it, and anyway, he didn’t want to talk about the slayer. “Come home, love. I’ve missed you.” 

“You haven’t.” 

Spike knelt by the edge of the sandbox and took her hands in his. They were sandy and warm with fresh blood, and her bright blue eyes were hollows in her perfect face. “I will always miss you,” he said. “I’ll always love you, you know that.” 

“Oh, Spike,” Drusilla said, her eyes closing, world-weariness clear in her face. “You used to taste like blood and honey. You used to taste of joy and darkness and screaming, don’t you remember?” She shook her head. “Now you only taste of her.” 

“Baby, I’m still here,” Spike said, reaching out to caress her face. “I’ll give her up. I will.” 

“I told you, you have to kill her first.”

“And I will. I promised.” 

Drusilla smiled again, but it was sad. 

“Dru, baby, please, come back.” He stood up with her. “If not to my arms, at least home with me. Don’t make me lose you again, I can’t bear to.” 

“Oh, sweet William,” Drusilla said. She slipped forward and into his embrace. He hadn’t brought his coat, so she was nothing but sweet and warm in his arms, a knot of softness and comfort. She let her face nuzzle into his chest, and he clutched her to him. 

“That’s right, baby,” he murmured. “You know where we belong.” 

“Where we belong and where we’ll go aren’t always the same thing,” she said. She pulled away and put her arms on his shoulders. “Dance one last dance with me, Spike. We can still be friends, can’t we?” 

“We’ve never been friends,” Spike said warmly. He touched her cheek and leaned forward to kiss her, but she leaned away and twisted him into a dance. He gave up and danced with her, moving and swaying to unheard music that was clear to Drusilla, but as always inaudible to him. He leaned forward several times to kiss her, but she turned her face away each time, leaving him her cheeks, her forehead, her jaw, which he pressed hesitant, soft kisses to, each time seeking her lips again, but she never gave them. “Drusilla, don’t. I don’t want it over.” 

“When the slayer is dead,” Drusilla whispered. She turned with him to the unheard waltz.

“Dru….”

“When you know what you want,” Drusilla said softly. She pulled away from his arms. 

“I’ll kill her. I swear it, I will!” 

“Until then, my sweet,” Drusilla said. She pulled away and vanished in the darkness. Spike waited only a breath, then ran after her, but she was faster than him. He lost her within three blocks, and after that her scent crossed itself over and over and over, and he couldn’t track her. It was back to those nights after she first left, hours and hours of walking, getting nowhere. Spike turned back faster tonight than he had those other nights. Something told him Drusilla did not want to be found. 

Buffy was in his bed.

He came down the stairs expecting her to have gone back up to her room, what with the watcher and everything around, and he’d just been chasing after Dru, and she might well have been brassed off about that, but there she was in his bed, asleep. Waiting for him.

He slipped into the bed beside her, and she woke up a little. “Drusilla,” she said. She seemed zoned. Well, she was still on painkillers. 

“Still off.”

“Is she okay? Is she…?”

“She seemed fine.” 

“Did she kill anyone?” 

She’d seemed well fed. “Dunno,” Spike said. 

“I should stop her,” Buffy said in her sleep-soaked voice. “I should stop you.” 

“Don’t worry about it, love,” Spike whispered to her hair. “Geas keeps us all safe, for now.” He hadn’t thought of it that way before, but it was keeping them safe. Keeping them safe from her. Keeping Buffy safe from them. Safe from him. He _couldn’t_ kill her right now. Drusilla’s mandate or not… she was safe for the time being. And something inside him was so happy for that fact. The chains keeping him from killing her were exactly what he wanted. 

“Don’t let me sleep here,” Buffy said. “Wes will… find us and….” 

“I’ll wake you before dawn,” Spike said. And he knew he would. Because he was going to kill her, he’d promised Drusilla, he’d promised himself. But he realized as he snuggled up against her trusting, human warmth, that something inside him also wanted her to be safe. 

***

Angel headed back to his apartment almost as a default. He couldn’t face Buffy, he couldn’t face Spike, he certainly couldn’t face Buffy _and_ Spike, and he didn’t know what he’d do if he was faced with Drusilla again, and if Spike brought her home and she kept on about Darla and destiny and evil lawyers….

Angel’s head was spinning. Destiny defied. Defiled. He had no destiny, he was adrift…. 

His door wasn’t locked. Angel frowned, because it was neatly closed, the tenuous door latch just holding it in place, but the lock he’d screwed in after the Master’s cronies had trashed the joint was gone, snapped out of its bolts. He listened carefully at the door for a moment, but there were no sounds from inside. Clearly it hadn’t been claimed by other vampires as a nest. 

He opened the door to assess the damage. There wasn’t much left that was valuable there, just some paintings and books he’d like to keep. Most of the best stuff had already gone to Buffy’s. 

The room was worse than when he’d left it, the coffee table broken, dark coffee stains on the carpets, more of his furnishings spread around as if it were just junk. And the bed…. 

The bed had been used. And he wished to god he could say he didn’t know by whom, but there were condoms strewn around the edge of the bed, some on the floor in the kitchen, even one -- he didn’t want to know how -- stuck to the ceiling of his bedroom alcove. And the condoms reeked of Spike and Buffy. It was so, so obvious what had taken place here. 

Angel started to chuckle, and then to giggle, and then he laughed outright, hysterical in grief and confusion, as it became clear that there might no longer be a destiny, but the Powers That Be were surely giving him a message all the same. Nothing for it but to just laugh and laugh, let the world spin on its axis, leaving him rudderless and impotent, a dandelion seed on the wind, no idea where it would land. Finally he made himself stop laughing, tears in his eyes, his soul weary beyond belief. It felt like a sign, this room of Angel’s which Spike and Buffy had taken for their own uses. 

Wesley was right. There was absolutely no destiny. 

Angel turned around and walked back out of the room again. 

To find Drusilla standing on the concrete steps, gazing down at him. “Your car has no ceiling to it but the stars.”

“I like to feel the wind in my hair,” Angel said to her. He did still have his car keys. His car was in the apartment complex’s garage, and it was freshly gassed up. He still had his bank accounts in LA. What did he really have that was important enough to keep? If he waited to pack, Drusilla might just take it into her head to leave. And he didn’t want that. 

He didn’t want that. 

“They’re in LA?” he said. “They know how to bring her back?” 

“Darla, darling Darla. When I close my eyes I feel we could see her again,” Dru said. “Is that what you want, my Angel?” 

“It is,” Angel said. He took Dru by the hand and led her to the garage. 

Ten minutes later he was driving beneath the stars toward LA, Drusilla in the passenger seat beside him, his soul screaming that wasn’t this backsliding? But it didn’t really matter. Buffy wasn’t his destiny. Maybe she had never been. Angel turned away from Sunnydale, out of Buffy’s story, and into his own. 


	29. Minor Betrayals

Willow listened to the report from her minion as she sat on her throne. She’d decided she wanted a throne, and picked up an ancient looking chair from an antique store, something blocky and monstrous which she would have found deeply uncomfortable if she was human. At least, she assumed as much, since it wasn’t made for comfort. She couldn’t remember being human anymore, but that was worth it for the powers she’d gained. Maybe she’d take the title of _queen_ once the slayer was disposed of. It sounded like a sufficient title, something grand and imposing. Vampire Queen Willow, the Slayer Slayer. No, too repetitious. Slayer’s Bane. She liked that. Vampire Queen Willow, Slayer’s Bane. 

“So you’re telling me that Angel _and_ Drusilla have left?” 

“They were seen leaving town together. The slayer’s support is diminished. She’s got only humans now.” 

Willow considered this. “What about Spike?” 

“He wasn’t with them.”

“But is he with Buffy? They’ve been spotted fighting together at least once.” 

“What’s Spike matter?” Xander asked, coming up behind her. He had a chair in this little throne room, too, but he’d elected for a high stool by Willow’s right, something he could just lean on. Mostly he stood, looking imposingly down at whoever had come to see her. To her left was a manacled pole they could chain victims to. It was an impressive little set up, fitting of Willow’s aesthetics these days. Power was her narcotic. Showing of power, using of power, growth of power. Power crackled off her and made her hair move and her eyes shine when she shifted them to yellow, like light bulbs in her head. The truth was, she scared everyone, even and especially Xander. 

And she wasn’t sure that was a problem. 

“Spike isn’t anything magic,” Xander said, crossing his arms. “He’s not as strong as the slayer, and without Dru to guide where and when he goes, what’s he got? A strong arm? I’ve got that.” 

“Spike’s better than you,” Willow said shortly. 

“I’d love to put that to the test,” Xander said darkly. 

“I’ll see to it you can,” Willow said. She glanced over her minion. “Anything more to tell me?” 

“Nothing concrete, your Willowship.” 

Willow wasn’t sure of _that_ title, but she let it slide until something better came to her. “You may go.” She gestured toward the door, and the minion backed away nervously and slipped out of the room. 

“So.” Xander leaned on the edge of her throne. “You got what you wanted. She doesn’t have the vampires supporting her anymore.” 

“She still has the humans,” Willow said. “But I think I know how to take that out, too. It’ll just take a little spell.” 

“How _little_ a spell?” 

“Just enough to block out the sun over a specific location. Nothing too serious.”

“So clouds?” 

“I was thinking a shield,” Willow said. “Clouds are too easily dispersed by the vagaries of weather or another magician. They have one of those, don’t they?” 

“Giles,” Xander said, reminding her gently. “He’s the one who taught you magic to start with.” He was always very gentle about the things Willow could no longer remember. Like her relationship with Giles or how Xander and Willow had first met. They were still best friends, because they’d been best friends as vampires, but it was different now, and Willow could sense it. She missed it, sometimes, reaching for a relationship and finding only a hole in her knowledge. But when she reached and it wasn’t there, Xander always _was_ there, filling in the gaps, and she could almost use him as her extra brain. He held their memories for them so that she could hold the power between them. It seemed a fair exchange. 

“How does a shield work?” 

“I’ll set it over the school. It will be a dark web of power that none can escape from.” She stood up from her throne to go to the desk by the wall, which was also adorned with an antique chair, albeit one a little less imposing than the throne itself. She slipped behind it and started drawing sketches in her notebook, a little image of Sunnydale High School. Then she held her fist over the paper and drew in a demonic breath, power coalescing in her hand as her eyes shifted yellow. Xander took in his own breath as her eyes lit up, casting an eerie diffuse light over the paper she was experimenting with. Willow let her fist go, and a ball of darkness bled over the page, hovering there until it sank onto the paper with the sound of congealing viscera. It shimmered like a dark soap bubble, until like a soap bubble it popped, leaving no trace of itself behind. 

“Well, the concept works,” Willow said. “Now I just need to add power. Bring me four human victims and eight minions. I need to feed, and build up my power for the shield. Eight vampires drained should do it.” 

“I’m not sure we have that many minions,” Xander said. “At least disposable ones.” 

“Then make a few more and bring them to me,” Willow said. “I can take out the whole Library Squad in one fell swoop if I take out the school. And they won’t be expecting us during the day. Buffy will have nothing to fall back on. We’ll defeat her easily.”

“We could just….” Xander stopped. Willow looked up sharply. 

“Xander?” 

“It’s nothing.” 

“You don’t lie to me,” Willow said. “You _never_ lie to me. You’re the one who tells me the truth! Are you lying to me now?” 

“No!” Xander held up his arms in defence. “Don’t freak out, Wills, I was just thinking out loud.” 

Willow let her demonic face fade and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Xander was, without a doubt, the most loyal minion she had. She wouldn’t dispatch him in a fit of pique, that would be a complete waste. “What were you thinking?” 

“Well, I was thinking maybe we could just… not stay in Sunnydale,” Xander said. “I mean, I know you called out the slayer and everything, and that’s really awesome. It made all the vampires here want to follow you, but… with all the new powers you have… I mean… do you really _need_ to kill the slayer?”

“She’s been eating _my_ allies right and left. Rack is dead. Wilkins is _gone_ , do you get that? The Ascension will no longer take place. That’s sent ripples through the underground, and don’t tell me they don’t all think it was the slayer. If I don’t take her out, they’ll never respect me. They’ll say I ran. You don’t want them to think me a coward, Xander, do you?” 

“No. No, of course not. I just… I’m not sure it’s worth all you’ve done to get here….”

“If it’s not, then all the more reason to do it!” Willow said. “I can’t give up now! The slayer is _mine_ , Xander, _mine,_ and I will feast on her blood, and I will crush her body, and I will tear off her head to show to my enemies! I will hang her skull on my throne, and make everyone who hears my name tremble! I will be worthy!” She shouted so loud that the whole room echoed. 

There was a terrible silence for a moment after her speech. Then Xander, who was looking at his shoes, said, “I already thought you were worthy.” 

Willow’s shoulders sagged and she closed her eyes. Xander really was a gift. She’d been quite right to keep him alive. She stood up from her desk and put her arms around him, and he hugged her back. 

“Don’t lose yourself in this, Willow,” he whispered to her ear. “Is power really more important?” 

“This is who I am now, Xander. And I can’t let her go.” 

Xander nodded, once, earnestly. “Then we make your shield, we take out the slayer’s Squad, and we kill the slayer. And after that? Then we can just be us again?”

“Aren’t we us now?” Willow asked, teasing. She kissed his nose and dug her nails into the back of his scalp, gently, but with an edge of danger to it. 

“I guess we are,” Xander said. “It’ll take a few days to give you the minions you need to eat.” 

“Drain. I drain them of power,” Willow said. “Thank you, Xander. I could always count on you.” 

  
  


***

“You must be well enough by now.” 

Buffy’s stomach ached and the antibiotics still occasionally made her nauseated. She felt stiff and exhausted and pulled through a hedge backward. But Wes was right, she could technically fight again, and had even proved it to herself by going on patrol. Angel hadn’t come back since the night Drusilla showed up, and while no one said much about it, they all figured he’d left with her. There was certainly no rumor that Angel had been killed by newborns or Willow’s forces, and when Spike checked a day later at Buffy’s request, Angel’s car was gone. It didn’t surprise Buffy that he’d left. She’d more or less told him to go. 

But the others were still there, and they still had a fight to win. Buffy gathered Anyanka, Giles, and to her annoyance Wes, and went to go see the new Mayor -- now acting Mayor Alan Finch, until it was proven that Mayor Wilkins was no longer in the world, and the next election could take place. 

Buffy tried to make an appointment, but she couldn’t relay to the secretary what her business was with the Mayor, and she wouldn’t make an appointment without stated business. Buffy said to just tell Mayor Finch her name and he’d see her, but apparently that didn’t fly with the new secretary, who had been told very strictly not to allow visitors without a recordable reason. Buffy couldn’t very well say, “Well, I killed Mayor Wilkins for him and now I want my payment in the form of the passkey to get at Willow the magic vampire,” and didn’t have much patience for that kind of shit anyway, so she’d slammed the phone down, gathered her posse, and headed off for Town Hall. 

She was annoyed at having to leave Spike behind, but it was daylight, and it was a bear getting him from place to place under a blanket. She’d never realized before how vulnerable vampires were until she lived with them. At night, yes, they were super-strong and massively dangerous, but by day they were always a cracked curtain away from death. It made immortality look extremely risky. 

She’d never wanted to keep a vampire _alive_ before. 

Buffy and her troop marched in to the Town Hall about four in the afternoon, ready to face the most officious team of civil servants in the universe. And sure enough, once they made it past the receptionist, past the security guard, and past the junior official they were shown to to finally face the Mayor’s own secretary, the woman told them to wait. “I’ll see if the Mayor can spare a moment. He has a number of meetings scheduled.”

“But he is _here?_ ” Buffy asked.

“As I told you, he’s very busy. The changeover was not as smooth as everyone would have liked, most of the last Mayor’s aides have vanished overnight, we’re horribly understaffed. If you’ll just wait a moment I’ll make a few phone calls….”

“No moments. No phone calls.” 

“Excuse me,” the secretary said as Buffy pushed past her desk, Anyanka and the watchers in tow. “I told you, the Mayor is extremely busy!” 

Buffy pushed open the Mayor’s office door and stood with her arms folded, glaring at the man behind the desk, not even glancing at the man in the suit with the briefcase of papers who was discussing some of them earnestly with Mayor Finch. 

Alan Finch looked different than he had before Wilkins’s death. Gone were the furtive glances, gone was the greasy hair, gone was the haunted air that had weighed down his shoulders. Now the man sat easily, with his finger busily on another sheet of paper, animatedly going over some government minutiae. Two teenage girls and a pair of English stuffed shirts made him look up from his papers, but did not make him cowed. 

“I tried to stop them, sir,” said the secretary, pushing through behind them. “I’m sorry, she wouldn’t listen. Should I call security?” 

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll talk to them. Ted, can you have those figures xeroxed for me? I’ll get back to you by the end of the week.” 

“Absolutely, Mr. Mayor.” Ted gathered up his papers and slipped them back into his briefcase, then left with an obsequious little bob in Finch’s direction. 

“You seem to be settling into your new job fairly well,” Buffy said. 

“Yes. I am.” Alan stood up from his desk and sat down on the edge of it, glancing at Buffy’s companions. “I see you didn’t bring the vampires.”

“I don’t need them for you,” Buffy said. “Your secretary says everything is going well.” 

“I doubt Stella would have said that.” 

“She said the Mayor’s aides took off. I take it those were his vampire minions? They haven’t joined together to kill you, so I assume you took care of them?” 

Alan shrugged. “I knew where their lair was. Once Wilkins wasn’t there to protect them it was easy enough to smash a few windows. Bulldoze a wall here and there. Sunlight did the rest. I told you I’d tried to manage things myself.”

“Yes, so you did. But you couldn’t manage Wilkins, so you hired me. I’ve come for payment.” 

“Uh, yes,” Finch said. “Yes, what exactly did you need from me? Willow’s location? She’s on Crawford Street, it’s fairly easy to find.” 

“No, it isn’t, and you already know it isn’t, or you wouldn’t be trying to fob me off with an address I already know!” Buffy snapped. 

“I think you may have to deal with some betrayal, Buffy,” Anyanka said quietly. “I know that look.” 

“Yes, thank you, Anyanka, I’d already figured that out when he wouldn’t take my calls,” Buffy said without looking at the ex-vengeance demon. 

“Buffy,” Alan said. “Can I call you Buffy?” 

“It’s my name.” 

“Buffy,” he said. “You have to understand, just because I’m the mayor now doesn’t mean I have Wilkins’ power. Far from it. I’m swamped with paperwork, police reports, demons are calling all hours of the day and night. It’s anarchy. I’m just trying to bring everything back into order.”

“And so am I. By taking out the most powerful vampire in the area.”

“And I respect that, I really do. I really hope you and I can have a good working relationship. I’m not like Wilkins, you know, I don’t work with vampires. You do, not judging, I just feel that we should keep our relationship on a strictly need-to-contact basis.” 

Buffy strode forward. “You told me you could get me in to Willow. That was the payment. I take out the Mayor, you give me Willow. That was the _deal_.” 

“And I’d love to help you, but it’s more complicated than that.” 

“It’s not complicated. Wilkins was Willow’s ally, she’d have given him a passkey. I want that passkey. What is it, where is it, and why hasn’t it already been delivered?” 

“I would have delivered it to you, I swear,” Finch said. “I’d have had it brought right to your house.” 

Which told Buffy he knew where her house was, which worried her vaguely. 

“So where is it?” Buffy demanded. 

“I… don’t know.” 

“You don’t _know?_ ” 

“I don’t know if he ever even had such a thing. He certainly never showed it to me.” 

Buffy reached out and took hold of his lapels, and there was the Alan Finch she knew. The terror was still behind his eyes. “You lied to me?” 

“I didn’t mean to! I thought it would be with his papers! I thought it would be with all that other stuff, and that it would turn up when he was dead! I’d have given it to you, I swear, I absolutely swear, I really meant to help you! I just… I just _can’t!_ ” 

Buffy’s hands were clenched around the expensive fabric, and what she really wanted to do was throw the weasely little man through the window. He’d reneged on the deal! She trembled, but Finch was human. He was out of his depth. And she believed him when he said he would have helped her, had meant to help her, even. Just to double check she glanced at Anyanka. “Is he telling the truth?” 

“I’m not a lie detector,” Anyanka said. But she hesitated. “It doesn’t seem like a willing betrayal,” she added. 

That was good enough for Buffy, though she still hated it. Anyanka’s vengeance sense had proven right on her, anyway. There was no reason it wouldn’t work on a betrayer as well as the betrayed. “If you find out… _anything_ … about how to get to Willow… you’ll tell me… right?” Buffy said directly into Finch’s face, low and slow. 

“Absolutely.”

“And the next time I call? You’ll take the call. Immediately. Tell the secretary now. I want to hear you do it.” 

“Stella!” Finch called loudly. Buffy let go of his lapels as Stella popped her head back in. 

“This is Buffy Summers. From now on if she calls, I want to know about it. Top priority. Doesn’t matter if I’m in a meeting, have stopped all calls, Miss Summers’ call gets through. Understand?” 

“Yes, sir. Do you want me to make a note of that for reception as well?” 

“Yes,” Finch said, starting to regather his dignity. “Yes, very important. Miss Summers is an important consultant. Her wishes… are not to be ignored.” 

“Yes sir,” Stella said. “Anything else, sir?” 

“Not right now. Miss Summers will be leaving soon. Won’t you?” he glanced at Buffy, and she could read him begging her. 

“In just another moment,” Buffy said, gesturing Stella out with her chin. 

“All right, sir.” The secretary slipped back out of the room. 

Buffy turned back to Finch. “You don’t get to play me again. Do you hear me? You don’t ever lie to me.” 

“I didn’t mean to, Miss Summers. It won’t happen again.” 

Buffy rubbed her forehead. “Do you have _any_ idea of _any_ of Willow’s allies who _might_ know how to get in to her?” she asked, exhausted. 

“I don’t know,” Finch said, sounding earnest this time. “Some of the minions might have known, but….” 

“But you dusted them,” Buffy said. “Anyone else?” 

“Not really. There was a blood dealer at the hospital….”

“Antonio,” Giles said, opening his mouth for the first time. “Why didn’t I think of it before? If he poisoned Angel’s blood, he must have been in contact with Willow.” 

“Great. How do we contact this Antonio?” 

“We don’t,” Alan said. “He was murdered weeks ago.” 

“Murdered?” Giles asked. 

“He was found frozen in the hospital freezer. At first it was thought an accident, but there were vampire bites on his neck, and the freezer had been tampered with. I don’t know why a vampire would have decided to freeze a victim to death instead of just kill him outright, but that’s what happened, and--”

“Excuse me,” Buffy said sharply. “We’re done here.” She pointed a finger at Alan’s nose. “You find out _anything_ about where Willow and Xander are, you tell me _immediately_. Got that? No tricks!” 

“Absolutely, ma’am. I mean miss. I mean Miss Summers.” 

“Get on with cleaning up this town. And do it fast. I don’t want to have to help you again.” She turned and left, and her companions followed, confused. 

“What’s happening?” Wesley asked. “What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing,” Buffy said. 

“Buffy, clearly he said something that--”

“Don’t talk to me!” Buffy snapped at watchers. 

They drove home in silence, Wes and Anyanka in the back of Giles’ Citroën, Buffy fuming in the passenger seat. They got back to the house, and Buffy was glad to find Spike in the living room, using the opportunity of Wesley’s absence to watch TV. He stood up when Buffy came storming in, and smiled warily. “How did the meeting with the new mayor go? We got our--”

Buffy didn’t let him get another word in. She hauled back and slapped him across the face, hard as she could. 

“ _Bad dog!_ ” 


	30. Bad Dog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Rough, kinky sex and dominance play. Could be read as dub-con.

“Oi!” Spike sputtered. That hurt. Truthfully, he couldn’t remember ever receiving a blow that hard, not with an open hand. He was so startled it didn’t even occur to him to hit her back. He clutched his cheek and stared at her, wide eyed. 

“What’s going on?” Giles asked. 

“Nothing. Spike and I need to have a little _discussion_ ,” Buffy said. 

“What? What?” Wesley asked. “What do you need to discuss?” 

“Oh, Spike killed the blood poisoner guy, didn’t you get that?” Anyanka said. “Unless it was Angel. But probably Spike. The freezer was a way to get around the geas. Buffy has every right to be pissed off.”

“Is this true?” Wesley asked. “You killed a human? He’s still capable of--”

“This isn’t a committee meeting!” Buffy yelled at the watcher. “Giles, you handle Wes’s righteous indignation. Spike is coming with me.” She grabbed Spike by the ear and pulled him toward the basement. 

“What are you doing?” Wesley asked. 

“Punishing the bad dog,” Buffy said, but Spike had recovered a little by then, and he pushed her hand off. “No, you don’t,” she snapped, and grabbed him by the back of the neck. Her nails were utilitarian length, and dull compared to Dru’s, but she still knew how to dig them into flesh. Spike writhed. Buffy wrenched the basement door open. He tried to snatch her fingers off, but she kicked him. He found himself falling heavily down the basement stairs, thumping all the way to the bottom, every corner bruising him. He wished he’d been wearing his coat, because he ended up with abrasions. 

Buffy was having some kind of brief argument with the watchers at the door. He caught words like, “Let me do what I need to,” and “It’s just the nature of things,” and “I can handle it. This is demon stuff.” 

Spike knew he was in trouble. Serious, dangerous trouble. He forced himself to his feet and stared up the stairs in defiance. Buffy stepped through the door and closed it behind her. She looked like a neon light about to short, all flickering with fury and bright with indignation. Her skin glowed out of its tank top, and her face was hard as stone. “Get on the bed,” she said darkly from her position above him, and Spike sucked in a breath. For a split second, he actually thought about just doing it. 

“Fuck off, bitch,” he said, knowing he was signing up for a beating with that. Of course, she was injured. He might win against her. He wasn’t going to just lie down and take it, not when he could still fight. 

He expected Buffy to rush him then. Dru would have. Instead she took a very slow step, then another one, descending deliberately, her eyes locked on his every step of the way. Everything about her told him she didn’t _need_ to go quickly. Her electricity seemed to crackle through the air, to make the taste of blood echo on his tongue. “Do what I tell you,” Buffy said when she reached halfway down the steps. 

Spike stepped away from her, out to the middle of the room, where he had more space to maneuver should he need to. “No.” He raised an eyebrow in a _what are you going to do about it?_ way, and Buffy smiled. That smile scared him. 

She made it to the bottom, and Spike swallowed. He wasn’t used to this. He knew what she was doing, he knew the rules of intimidation, but he was used to being the one with the fangs. When _she_ did it, it seemed so much more sinister, wrong, even. If she was a vampire he could have faced her as an equal, but she was something other, something that shouldn’t be, her form seductive and insubstantial, something of her still so human, the quintessential victim, and he knew that form was hiding the killer of his kind. 

“Why’d you do it, Spike?” Buffy demanded. “Were you trying to hide them from us?” 

“What do you mean?” 

Buffy moved then, faster than he’d anticipated, and kicked him in the side. He blocked it, tried to punch forward, but she sidestepped and used his own momentum to shove him against the wall. “Why’d you kill him?” she demanded again. “Was it just to keep the entry key from us? Was that why you did it? Because you knew _we_ knew he worked for Willow, is that why you did it?” 

“What are you on about?” Spike snapped, whirling around from his place against the wall. “You don’t know I killed anyone.” 

Buffy punched him in the head then, and Spike punched back, hard as he could through the geas, and she staggered back. “I’m not an idiot!” she yelled, recovering. 

“Don’t give a dog a bad name.” 

“When the dog’s a bad dog, I’ll give it any name I want!” She moved back into range and went at him again. 

They were more evenly matched this time, with her injury. They kept circling round and around each other in the small, indoor space, landing blows, launching kicks, standing their ground. It wasn’t a beautiful fight. Knowing her as well as he did now made something ugly in it, and this wasn’t the game. She wasn’t fighting for her life. She was just angry with him.

“Tell me the fucking _truth,_ ” she demanded the next time she got her hands on him. She had him in a headlock, and he absolutely could not get out of her goddamn skinny fucking arm. 

“Okay, right? I killed the bugger,” Spike choked out. “You happy now?” 

“Why’d you do it?” she growled down at him. “Are you on Willow’s side? Are you hiding her from me? Tell me!” She shook him. “Are you Willow’s minion? Tell me!”

“What? Bloody hell.” He used the strength of his indignation to shove Buffy off him, and she let him, glaring expectantly. “I’m not Willow’s bloody anything, all right?” So that’s why she was so damn mad? It was absurd. “He was a bad man on my enemy’s side! I just killed him, all right? It was right to, he was one of hers.”

“What do you care about that?” 

“He poisoned Angel!”

“You hate Angel!” 

“So? He tried to bugger up Dru’s spell! It could have been her!”

“Oh, so you were just protecting Dru, were you?” 

“You bloody well know I wasn’t protecting Willow!” He punched again, and Buffy ducked, grabbed his arm, and wrenched it up his back. At the risk of a broken elbow, Spike used his advantage, punching at her stomach with his free hand. 

Buffy had to let go, bending away from the attack. “That was a low blow,” she said through teeth clenched in pain. “It’s almost fucking _healed_ now, anyway!” She turned and kicked him hard, and he went backwards and ploughed into the raven’s cage. It splintered under his weight, and the bird shrieked outrage, hopping out of the way of the rubble.

Spike was left a little woozy by that one. Buffy came up and grabbed him by the shirt, then hit him over and over again in the head. Spike hadn’t been beaten like that since…

Well, since the last time Buffy had punished him for taking a victim when he shouldn’t. 

His head lolling, Spike was only vaguely aware as Buffy dragged him from the broken cage and tossed him lightly up on the bed. Or maybe not so lightly. She grunted as lifting the weight put strain on her wound, and held her stomach for a moment. 

Spike tried to get up, but Buffy didn’t let him, leaping onto the bed and stepping on his chest. “Stay down!” she snarled. She dropped, straddling his neck and shoulders, holding him with her knees, and reached down to find the chains. Bloody hell, this was _just_ what he was trying to avoid. She had been more violent about it than Dru, who often used her thrall eyes on him to get him into the chains. And then left him there. For days. Starving. Unless she just used the opportunity to torture him. Bloody hell, he didn’t want to go through that again. He tried to wrestle his way off, but Buffy snapped one chain around his wrist, and when Spike vamped up to try to bite at her thigh, Buffy just hit him in the nose. “Stay the fuck down!” she told him. She dug up the other chain and forced his other arm in. 

Only once he was chained down did she get up, panting, and examined her wound. She took the bandage off and stared down at it. Giles had stopped packing it, but either she’d strained the barely healed flesh, or one of Spike’s blows had ripped it open, because the bandage was stained with fresh blood. “God fucking dammit!” Buffy yelled. She strode over to the broken raven’s cage and picked up a splintered piece of wood. 

Spike’s eyes widened. “What are you going to do with that?” 

“Shut up, I’m punishing you,” Buffy barked. She climbed back up onto the bed and attacked him with the stake. 

Or rather, attacked his shirt. It ripped beneath the sharp wood, and Spike sucked in a breath through his nose. What was she playing at? His chest was bared, the remains of his shirt clinging around his neck. He was bruised and dazed and chained up, and she had a stake. He’d found ways around not killing. There was no reason why she couldn’t. 

Spike closed his eyes, trying to think of something to say. “It wasn’t for Willow. I swear it wasn’t for Willow. It was for you. It was for the team. I swear, it was for you, pet, it was all for you.” 

He didn’t feel sharp wood against his chest. Instead the smell of blood sharpened, and he felt Buffy’s finger drawing warm wetness across his flesh. Spike opened his eyes. Buffy had dipped her finger in her own reopened wound and was painting across his chest with a brightness in her eyes, tickling him gently with the scent of her own blood. 

“Buffy?” 

“Shut up,” Buffy said. She looked up from her painting. “You wanna be the bad dog, Spike? You wanna kill whenever and wherever you want to? That’s no good. You have to answer for that.” 

Spike glanced down. She’d painted a B on his right pectoral. She reached for her blood again. 

“Like the scent, Spikey?” Buffy asked. She held up her blood-touched finger and held it just above his nose. His mouth opened automatically, but Buffy snatched her finger away, instead licking the blood herself. He groaned. He couldn’t help it. 

Buffy went back to her painting, catching the blood from her wound over and over again. Once “BAD DOG” was scrawled on his chest in slayer’s blood, Buffy climbed off him. She examined her wound again and grunted in annoyance. Then she turned around and left him there. 

Spike’s eyes closed again. Fuck. How long would she keep him chained? He strained at the bonds, but they were vampire strength, the Master’s specials, and the bedposts were thick. He could have broken them with a sharp blow, but he wasn’t strong enough to snap them from here. He tried, rattling the chains as he writhed, but he realized he was more likely to snap his wrists than the chains themselves. That was an option, if Buffy decided to leave him there for… well, forever, but he wasn’t that desperate yet. 

How long _would_ she leave him like this? The scent of her blood was driving him barmy. His teeth clenched behind the fangs, and he made his face go down. The scent might be less strong that way, or at least he wouldn’t be anticipating the blood as much. It wasn’t fair. 

Or was it fair? What was right here? He’d never been in a position to have to make such a decision. _Kill_ was always the right decision. But Buffy had clearly positioned herself as a leader here. Spike had been the leader for decades, managing minions and followers and gangs ever since Angelus had left them. He’d known he had to keep his killing from Buffy… but what was the cost of that deception in the first place? 

Spike wasn’t liking where his thoughts were going, and he resented having to think them. It wasn’t as if he felt _guilty_ for killing the baby-selling blood-dealer. But he was starting to think it wasn’t the right thing to do all the same. He resigned himself to being left as a prisoner until Buffy took it into her head to do something else with him. She might just kill him. Even if she couldn’t do it herself, Giles could, now Spike was incapacitated. Spike sensed there was more to the ex-watcher than books and fucking geases. If Buffy told him to stake Spike, he’d do it, with few qualms.

Then he heard the door open, and someone coming back down the stairs. He lifted his head. Buffy stood there with a knife in her hand. It was a wicked, double bladed thing, with a rounded, oblong handle, tapered at the hilt and before the blunt pommel. Definitely not a kitchen blade. Probably part of the arsenal she’d brought with her when she came to Sunnydale. She came up to him and stared. She’d changed her shirt to something un-bloodstained, and Spike could smell fresh antiseptic. She’d rebandaged her wound. 

But she hadn’t left him here to starve. He felt apprehension, both glad to see her, and terribly afraid. That was a nasty looking knife. 

“I checked,” she said. “Anyanka doesn’t _think_ you betrayed me, but she says she can’t be sure with a vampire. You probably stink of betrayal anyway.”

“What?” Spike said, and he annoyed himself with a shiver in his chest. “You think I went out of my way to kill the bloke so that… what? He couldn’t give you the key to the misdirection spell?” 

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I think.” 

“It’s bollocks,” Spike said, trying to sound defiant. You don’t piss off the bitch with the knife, but he couldn’t bring himself to project abject deference, either. “I just killed the bugger. I thought, here’s a bad man I can _kill_.” 

“Why?” Buffy demanded again. 

Spike tried to think back to that night. It seemed so fucking long ago. The real reason might just piss her off more… but it had the benefit of being true. “Because I thought you wouldn’t.”

Buffy went completely still, her body, her face. She even stopped breathing for a moment, she was like a statue. “And that was a problem?” she said, her voice neutral, her face unreadable. 

“He was one of Willow’s, but he was human. It was before I saw you with Rack, before I knew about… about you,” he said. “Thought it would be against your bloody morals. He needed gone. It was one less pawn to worry about.” 

Buffy was silent for a breath, two breaths. “We had forgotten about him,” she admitted. 

Spike didn’t say anything. 

Then her face changed, but he couldn’t exactly say it had softened. Something cunning and wicked was in it now, but it was no longer anger. “You still didn’t ask permission.” 

“I’m not the permission type,” he snapped. 

“No. You’re not.” She moved then, climbing up onto the bed, the knife in her hand. “But you should be.” With a swift gesture she unbuckled his belt and whipped it off his waist. “You really fucking should be.” And partially to his annoyance, mostly to his prodigious arousal, Buffy cut through his waistband, and ripped the knife down the leg of his jeans with a sound that had Spike panting. He didn’t even try to kick her away, afraid of the edge of the blade. Then she straddled him backwards, giving him a view of her perfect behind as she sliced down the other leg, and ripped the things off his ass, catching his balls with the rough fabric. 

“Those weren’t cheap.” 

“And I paid for them,” Buffy reminded him. She turned around, kneeling beside him on the bed. “Shut up. You need to learn to ask before you just up and do shit.” 

“You don’t go bloody asking!” 

“Sure I do,” Buffy said. “I’m asking now.” She reached forward and grabbed his straining cock. “Do you want me to do something with this?” 

Spike gasped, but it was shaky. God, her hot hand felt so damn good. “Please,” he panted. 

And to his horror, she did not start milking him. Instead she held him steady and pressed the knife against the base of his cock. “Oh, fuck, no. No, please. Please!” 

She grinned then, a wicked little grin, but there was an almost innocent wriggle to her shoulders. “You scared, Spike?” 

“Yes,” he said shortly. 

“You don’t want me to use this?” 

“No.” 

“You sure?” She slid the blade along his cock, not slicing with the edge, but scraping him slightly, as if she were using a razor, oh so fucking gently. It wasn’t as sharp as a razor, so it just felt cold and dangerous, and Spike gasped and his cock jumped and _fuck, fuck, fuck, stay still you sick prick!_ He panted, almost crying with terror, and tried to hold her with his eyes. He wasn’t sure she wouldn’t actually fucking do it. Most of him felt she wasn’t quite that sadistic, but then, he’d been sadistic in his time, and Buffy kept surprising him. The truth was, even Dru had never done this. Fuck, even Angelus had never done this. 

“Please, slayer,” he said. 

“Mm,” Buffy said. She slid the knife down lower, tracing the tip over his balls, then lifting them gently with the flat of the blade. She hadn’t sliced yet. He swallowed and tried to breathe deep. And the fucking scent of her blood was still hanging in the air! Fucking bitch! “Please what?” 

“Please don’t.” 

“Please don’t what?” 

“Please don’t cut me.” 

“You want me to fuck you instead?” 

“Yes, please.” 

“Mm,” Buffy said. The blade left his balls, and he breathed a sigh of relief before Buffy surprised him again. She put the knife on his stomach and spread his legs, bending down between them to put her mouth _right on his fucking cock._

No condom. 

She had always used a condom before for anything more intimate than a hand job. He'd never felt that hot, wet mouth without latex between him and her. He gasped and pumped his hips into her face, over and over, until it started to build, and build, and he was almost there, almost there, but she pulled away before he could come, making him whimper as she moved down to his balls, licking them and lifting them, and then… then she went… she went lower.

He felt her wet, wicked little tongue on his anus, licking and poking, shallow at first, then slowly deeper as it opened and hungered. Spike’s desperate gasps slowed as he lay there with his legs spread wide, almost up to his ribs, the slayer going as deeply and as intimately as it was possible to go, Spike occasionally moaning softly, his arms straining at the chains as the sensation trickled through him. 

He was humming with pleasure now, shocked, humbled, blissed out, feeling the wet little muscle, drawing in breath he didn’t need, until a particularly loud moan he issued made Buffy laugh against his flesh. She’d been down there for some time. “Was that fun?” she asked from between his legs.

Spike made a noise. He wasn’t up to speaking. Then a sharp finger slipped into his already opened and softened ass. 

He yelled. 

“Oh?” she asked. “Tell me about it.”

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Spike breathed as she did exactly that. 

“I thought you wanted me to fuck you, Spike. Isn’t this what you wanted?” 

“Oh, god, do it,” he whispered. 

“Okay,” she said. She lifted the heavy weight of the knife off his stomach, and a second later the hilt took the place of her comparatively soft finger. 

Spike’s eyes opened wide and he stared at her. “Bloody hell!” 

“No,” Buffy said. “There’s no blood. Yet. Unless you wanted me to use the other end.” 

“No, please,” he said automatically. 

Buffy grinned again at that. “I should have used lube, but you’re a vampire. I figured you could take it.” She shifted the wooden hilt inside him. “Can you take it?”

“Yes.”

“Say that again?” 

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

Spike breathed in and let himself say it. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, oh, god, yes.” 

Buffy regarded him for a long moment, a strange little smile on her face. “Now tell me you should have waited for permission.” 

“Yes.” 

“Tell me that next time you’ll ask first.” 

“Yes.” 

“Yes what?” 

“Yes, next time I’ll ask first.” 

Buffy fucked him gently with the handle of the knife some more, and then pulled it out. For all that it was a fucking knife, she’d been surprisingly gentle with it. Spike sagged as she removed it, and then opened his eyes, wondering if she’d decide to do something else with the thing. After all, she’d already scratched him with a stake. The knife couldn’t kill him unless she cut his head off with it, but she could hurt him badly. 

She seemed done with the blade. She threw it across the room, but he didn’t hear it clatter. She’d stuck it blade-first into the wooden stairs. Just to make the point, he supposed, because she was just showing off now. 

He was hard as a rock, harder than he could even imagine being, and Buffy slipped off the foot of the bed and lifted her shirt over her head. A second later she’d shed her fatigues, and there she stood, naked and glorious save for her bandage. She crawled back onto the bed and over his body, where she straddled him and teased his unadorned cock with her sweet little quim. “You want to feel this?” 

“Mm-hm.” 

“How badly do you want it, Spike?” 

“Very badly.”

“You can do better than that. Weren’t you a poet?” 

Oh, fuck her to hell and gone. “Desperately,” he whispered. 

“Go on.” 

“Fiercely. Uh, hungrily. Fervently. Desperately, oh, god, fuck, please!”

“What will it be like?” she asked.

He cringed, and found himself answering, “It’ll be like magic, like god, like death. It’ll be glorious, sublime, dazzling… effulgent!” He was almost sobbing now. “Endless comfort, heavenly relief.”

“Better than the kill?” she asked, still only teasing his cock. 

“You can make me alive,” he said, believing it in the moment. 

He sighed with relief as she finally, _finally_ slipped her wet cunt down his shaft, his body clenching as it automatically tried to arch up more deeply into her. She rode him steadily and carefully. “You like being punished, Spike?” 

“So much.” 

“Good boy,” Buffy said. Then--

“No!” he groaned as she lifted herself off him again. She crawled over his body and then straddled his neck again, sticking her cunt in his face. 

“Get me off,” she ordered. 

He had been _so close to coming_. He almost wanted to bite her, but that wouldn’t get him what he wanted, and anyway, her quim was almost as good as her blood, and the scent of that was still in the air. He stuck his tongue out and licked at her clit, sliding between her folds until the little nub sucked into his mouth. He was diligent, and fast, caressing her with hard but hungry licks until she started to moan and groan and her hips rocked against his chin. It didn’t take long. She was as aroused as he was. 

She froze and moaned over him, her head arching back, a look of ecstasy on her face. 

“More,” Spike begged once she’d finished. He wanted to come _so badly_. 

She laughed then, looking relieved and amused. “Mm. More. Do you deserve more?” 

Oh, fuck. What had he just asked for? 

Then he realized he’d do best to just ask properly. He gazed deeply into her green eyes, and in a tiny, fervent little whisper he pleaded, “Please let me come.” 

Buffy looked down on him, sitting on his chest. Her voice was so beautiful, deep and sultry, as she asked, “Do you want me to let you come, or let you go?” 

He stared at her, and emotion overcame him. She was everything. She was so strong, so powerful, so beautiful, so haunted, so fierce, so much everything that he realized he couldn’t decide. What did _she_ want? That was all that mattered. What did _she_ want of him? “Whatever your will, my liege.”

She laughed then, a little chuckle of delight, and rolled off him. She reached up and unpinned the manacle on his left hand, then his right. He could, of course, have grabbed her then. He could have fought her. He could do anything he wanted. And what he did was lay there stunned, trying to fathom what had just happened to him, what he, almost without willing it, had just given her.

She had no idea what had happened. It was nothing to her, just another line in the dominance play, just another reference to their shared little joke, just words. She went back to his cock, pulling it into her mouth, and Spike closed his eyes as the sensation shot through him. He’d just given her everything and he was a different creature, and she wouldn’t give him the chance to absorb it without punctuating it with pleasure he wasn’t sure he could handle. 

“Oh, Buffy. Buffy, Buffy,” he gasped, caressing her head with his newly freed hands. He didn’t hump into her, just lay and absorbed her expertly trained attention, and then when he started to get close again, and Buffy pulled away yet _again_ all he did was make a high sound of disappointment in his throat. But she straddled him, watching him the whole time, and wriggled her cunt down over him, riding him steadily again, and he knew she was trying to make herself come once more, and rather than letting himself come, despite how hungry he was, he held it back, and held it back, and whispered to her, “That’s right, pet, come on, feel it, feel it, I’ll do it for you, I will, I’ll do it for you,” until she started whimpering, and it was only as she grunted her second orgasm out over him that he finally, finally got to let himself release. 

It poured through him like a waterfall, a deadly roar of power, sweeping him away. He screamed with it, the sound probably echoing through the house, but Buffy’s time here with him was sanctioned by his needing to be punished, so it didn’t matter how she made him scream. He filled her, and she let him fill her, emptying himself into her, a space to pour all his pleasure and all his violence and all his hunger, and she’d just opened it for him completely and without any barriers.

She rolled off him and lay by his side, flushed and glowing, and he panted and shuddered and tried not to sob. What had she done to him? What had she done?

“Now,” Buffy said, tracing the blood marks on his chest, which had gotten a bit smudged during their little session. “Are you going to behave yourself from now on, and stop killing, and stop being a naughty vampire, and be a good boy until this geas is lifted?”

Spike was almost too lost to answer. “Yes, my liege.” He found the words, and they were beautiful, and he closed his eyes as he said them and breathed in her scent. _I’m lost to her_ , he realized. The realization came to him almost in another voice, maybe William’s voice, his own lost life, telling him what he had become. _I’m completely and utterly lost. Anything she wants of me, I’ll do. Anything she needs of me, I’ll become. I am hers, completely and utterly, and I will never, ever escape her thrall._

It wasn’t a thrall like Drusilla’s. There was no magic. There was no hypnosis. He was completely awake and aware, and he was lost all the same. _Do I love her? Yes, I love her. I adore her. I’m her slave. I have become her willing slave_. 

He was a minion. He’d never been a minion, not even to Angelus after he was first turned, and the sod had certainly done his best to treat him like one. Spike had loved Drusilla -- he still loved Drusilla -- but it hadn’t been this. He’d kill Dru for Buffy in a heartbeat. He’d kill anything for Buffy in a heartbeat. Or even -- god help him -- not kill for Buffy. 

He could never let her know. It would kill him -- she would kill him. Of course she would kill him. Except she wanted him to kill her. He clung to the straw in the flood. _She wants me to kill her_. 

It was a saving grace. His only saving grace. When the time came, when the geas was lifted, it would end then. He would be her slave no longer -- except he would always be her slave. But she _wanted_ him strong, she _wanted_ him the killer, she begged for bedtime stories of how he’d drain her blood to her own sacred death. _I will love her, and I will worship her, and I will even obey her, and when it’s all over we will fight and I will kill her as she has asked of me._ And the image of her dead and drained in his arms was so beautiful and so painful that he almost sobbed aloud again. 

“Are you okay?” Buffy asked. 

No. He would never be okay again. _I love you_. Don’t say it! She hated it from Angel, it would just fucking scare her! “How’s your wound?” he asked instead of answering. 

“Hurts. Don’t hit it again.” 

_Don’t give me orders! I’ll fucking follow them!_ “Okay.” _I love you._ No, don’t say it! 

Buffy shifted and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what to do now. We’ve got no leads. You killed our only remaining lead.” 

“To be fair, it was weeks ago,” he said. “We didn’t even know about the spell.” He caressed her hair. “Something will come to you.” 

“Something already has. We wait for Willow to make a move. The problem is, how many die when she does? I think she’s been laying low this long only to regroup or strengthen forces or basically make it that much harder to kill her.” 

“You’ll do it. You’re the slayer.”

“That I am,” she said low, but she didn’t sound convinced. A second later he knew she wasn’t. “If I fail…”

“I won’t let you fail,” Spike said. 

“If I do,” Buffy said. “You’ll try to take her out?”

 _Anything you ask._ Spike swallowed. “Of course. Geas is linked to her defeat, not yours.”

“Right.” She rubbed his chest again. “You know, you still make me happy, even when you piss me off.” Her eyes were unfocused. “I really almost thought you’d betrayed me.”

 _I could never betray you. Not now._ “Not this time,” Spike whispered. 

Buffy made a snuggly, childish noise. “Okay. You be a good dog,” she said, tapping at his chest. 

_I am your dog. Let me sit at your feet, and have you use me as your spaniel._ “I’ll never be a _good_ dog,” he said instead. 

“Then be a good _bad_ dog,” Buffy said. “I’m too tired to punish you _all_ the time.” 


	31. Secrets

The next few days were calm. There was a storm brewing for the future, but Anyanka liked the feeling in the house all the same. Willow was still out there, but Mayor Wilkins had been prevented from Ascending into Olivikan, and Buffy’s injury was healing, so things had settled into a real routine. Anyanka had even taken to hunting vampires with the Library Squad in the evenings, in an attempt to prove to Wesley that she was worth her keep and absolutely wasn’t to be thrown out in the cold or destroyed as a demon. Going on patrol turned out to be quite fun. Sometimes she ended up breathing in vampire dust, but mostly it was like a fast, permanent vengeance that could be enacted on bad men, and she was glad to help. 

Buffy was getting stronger by the day. Despite the setback where she ripped her wound back open, she seemed to heal exponentially. And Spike was positively domestic. He even made dinner one night, with an extravagant flowering onion centerpiece. He was going on patrol again with them, too, and was a strong asset fighting against the vampires, especially now that the _modus operandi_ was to catch the vampires, search, and interrogate them before dusting them. Buffy was still hungry for that pass key to Willow’s. But all the vampires they caught were either newborns without much knowledge of Willow, or else they weren’t carrying a key on them, and weren’t telling if they knew where one was. 

Anyanka meant to take over Angel’s room now that he was gone, or maybe try and shunt Wes over so she could have her room back again, but she was a little nervous about getting Wes’s back up, and anyway, Buffy seemed to enjoy the company. They’d gotten into a little routine, even sharing some of their sleepwear, and fortunately Buffy didn’t snore -- Buffy said it was probably a slayer self-preservation habit, to not draw attention to themselves while they slept. Nothing about her existence was untouched by vampires -- so she was easy to share space with. They each had their own pillows and blankets, and they curled up at opposite sides of the bed, and really, Buffy had been having sex in the basement regularly, so Anyanka actually had the bed to herself quite a lot. When they did share, Buffy said it was like a sleepover, and while Anyanka didn’t have a lot of experience with human sleepovers, she did understand the concept. She supposed since she was a teenage girl now, she should embrace the custom. 

The night after Spike’s “punishment” Buffy was thoughtful as she slipped into bed beside Anyanka. “Is everything okay with him?” Anyanka asked. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be sure about a betrayal.” 

“His explanation made sense,” Buffy said. “Apparently it was before we knew we needed a pass thingy to get in to Willow, anyway. And it was a bad man. Spike sort of thought he was helping.” 

“That’s good.” She paused. “Wesley thinks you were torturing him.” 

Buffy got a strange smile on her face. “Well, I suppose I might have been.”

Anyanka raised her eyebrows.

“Shut up!” Buffy told those eyebrows, and hit her with her pillow. 

Anyanka laughed. “Did you at least get to use the chains?” 

“The chains were the least of it.”

“Mmm.” Anyanka felt a little wistful. Now that she was human, she kind of wished she could manage all that human stuff, like pair-bonding and employment and proper friendship. So far all she’d managed was to get on okay with the slayer, and that was all well and good, but was it particularly human? Of course, fucking a gorgeous vampire wasn’t particularly human, but Spike was _very_ good looking. “Was he good in bed all chastened and humiliated?” 

Buffy snaked her pillow back under her head, her eyes unfocused. “He was….” She closed her eyes, no words for what he was. “I don’t know. It was… powerful.” 

“That sounds good. Are you going to punish him again?” 

“Not unless he earns it. Or unless we really want to,” Buffy said. “I… I did it without any, um, protection this time.” 

“Was that your idea, or his?” 

“Mine. Mostly I hadn’t planned on fucking him, and then he was so earnest and scared and I was like, fuck it. Literally, I just wanted to. And like, I’ve been looking it up in Giles’s books. Spike can’t get me pregnant, and there’s no sign of a vampire being a carrier for HIV or anything. Though… I guess most of their victims die before you can check for that kind of thing.”

“Human diseases don’t survive in demonic flesh,” Anyanka said. “I know, I’ve lived through plagues and pandemics, and I’ve never carried a disease to a human. There are some demonic diseases that spread through the demon populace sometimes, but they don’t touch humans, and the human diseases don’t touch us. Not that I know of, anyway.” 

“Does that apply to a vampire? They were once human.” Buffy cringed uncomfortably. “I should have asked this before I did it, I guess.” 

“Most demons on this plane were once human or part human or have human echoes in their makeup. All the vengeance demons were once human except for D’Hoffryn himself, and even he might have something long ago in his ancestry that he doesn’t like admitting to. I think the question is, does it apply to a vampire with a slayer. Why is a slayer a slayer? How human is she? And I don’t know the answer to that.” 

“We’re pretty resilient, according to Giles’s books. There’s not a lot of diseases that can affect us, and we can even brush off most poisons. What I read in Giles’s books is… well, ugly, but I guess good news.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“It tells the watchers not to worry if a slayer is, uh, violated….” She stopped. “Stupid watcher ephemisms. Anyway, the records say it’s okay if a slayer is raped by a vampire, because there shouldn’t be any physical effects from that. Which explains why my second watcher sent me out hunting the way he did.” 

Anyanka didn’t like that any more than Buffy did. “It’s _okay_ if that happens to a slayer? Seriously? They say it’s _okay?_ ”

“That there shouldn’t be any detrimental physical effects, so the slayer should be able to perform her duties without delay. And that was from a report from the ‘80s, even after AIDS came down, so.” 

Anyanka’s eyes narrowed. “Why in the fuck has no slayer called vengeance down upon these bastards?” 

“The watchers weren’t the rapists. Well, most of them.” 

“But they send you out to be hunted.” 

Buffy sighed. “It’s just the way of things.” 

“I used to be able to do something about _the way of things,_ ” Anyanka grumbled. “Get back to Spike. So it was good?” 

“It was glorious,” Buffy said quietly. “Effulgent.” She leaned her head back on her pillow. “What am I going to do?” she muttered. Then she shook her head. “Why am I even asking that? I know what I’m going to do. I don’t like what I’m going to do.” 

Anyanka reached out and patted Buffy’s arm. “I wish I could help.” 

“You’ve been helping,” Buffy said. “Thanks. You’ll keep covering for me for Wes?”

“Of course,” Anyanka had agreed readily. A little _too_ readily. The truth was, Buffy and Spike were so high on each other, floating around the house, that it was a little difficult to hide their relationship from anyone, even an emotionally stunted, sexually blinded little twerp like Wesley. 

Fortunately, all the others were okay with it, even though Spike was a vampire. “No,” Oz said when Anya brought it up in school a few days later. “It makes sense. I mean, Buffy’s human, but she’s not really human. Spike’s a vampire, but he’s a sensitive one. I understand having something about you that isn’t… really… normal, and that can call out for someone who understands it. I think I was drawn to Willow before she was turned because I sensed she was different, what with her magic.” 

“But why would you need someone different?” Anyanka asked. 

Oz was awkwardly silent. 

“You going to tell her?” Larry asked. 

Anyanka perked up. “Tell me what?” 

“Shut up,” Oz said, but it was with an eye roll. 

“You’re not very good at keeping this a secret,” Larry said. “ _She’s_ a demon.” 

“I could let all _your_ secrets out,” Oz pointed out. 

“Not you,” Larry said. “Besides, I don’t care anymore. It just seems so silly when vampires have eaten half the student body. Like, who can care these days?” 

“What seems so silly?” Anyanka asked.

But Oz wasn’t paying attention anymore. “Do either of you smell that?” 

Anyanka looked around the quad, following Oz’s attention. “Smell what?”

“I don’t… ozone,” Oz said. “I’m definitely smelling ozone, and maybe blood.” 

With a clap of what sounded partly like thunder, partly like wetly breaking bones, something started to grow around the edge of the school grounds. At first it seemed like a wave of darkness, lapping at the edges of the grounds, then it seemed like a high fence, then it grew and grew until it arched over their heads. The children were screaming, some were running. A boy Anyanka knew as being on the football team ran straight for the barrier, dragging his protesting girlfriend behind him, trying to get through it. 

Anyanka hadn’t seen this spell before, but she knew the type. “Larry, stop them!” she yelled, but it was too late. Before Larry could even begin his sprint toward his teammate, the football player had hit the barrier, and his girlfriend stopped up and screamed. She was holding a severed hand in hers, and she dropped it hastily. Larry got to her a couple seconds later, dragging her away from the darkly crackling barrier, and pulled her back toward her friends in the quad. Oz and Anyanka looked up as the sun faded, the barrier closing over their heads to leave a darkness black as night, shot through with crackles of blue lightning. 

It was nearly pitch dark. The sun broke through not at all. There were screams, movement in the darkness. Anyanka suspected another couple of students risked the barrier and were reduced to so much red mist. Suddenly the school floodlights kicked on, as some clever teacher or custodian realized what had happened. 

“We gotta get to Giles,” Anyanka said. 

“The library, go, go!” Oz yelled to Larry, but several others heard him. There was a sudden mass movement as some of the kids headed for the library, others for the gym, depending on which they were more likely to trust as a safe zone. Anyanka found herself running with Harmony, whom she still hadn’t quite dislodged as a _friend_. They were halfway to the library when the door to the basement burst open and vampires poured out, protected from the sunny windows by the dark barrier overhead. 

In the center stood a dark-haired vampire in a leather coat, who took one look at the screaming populace and called out, “Prepare to die, sheep!”

“You don’t scare me, Xander Harris!” Harmony shouted at him, pulling a cross from around her neck. “You can be all lame and threatening as you want, you’re still a loser!”

“Harmony.” Xander strode forward and grabbed the blonde by the hair, ignoring the burn she caused on his wrist. “I have wanted to kill you since the third grade,” he said, and whipped her up to sink his teeth into her neck. 

“Move, move!” Anyanka said, shoving the girl in front of her to move faster. Oz was already at the library, ushering kids in. Larry came up after Anyanka, dragging the girl from the barrier with him, who was bloodstained and still in shock. 

“All this screaming,” came a loud but calm female voice as several other vampires followed after Xander. Anyanka paused in the door of the library to look. The other vampires were flanking a new arrival, who strode out of the stairs from the basement as if she were floating. This had to be Willow. She was dressed in a black corset and tight skirt, her red hair moving like Medusa as power crackled off her. “Xander says I was always such a good student. I should have come back to school long ago.” 

Larry took Anyanka’s shoulder and dragged her into the library, shoving the doors closed behind her. The Squad and the other kids quickly dragged bookshelves and filing cabinets in front of the doors. “We have to keep them out!” Giles was shouting. “Everyone, help me with these barricades!” 

Anyanka could have helped, but she knew barricades would be completely useless against as powerful a magic user as this Willow seemed to be. To turn day into night and crackle power like that, the vampire-witch was not to be held back by a couple of bookshelves. Anyanka worked her way out of the crowd at the door and back behind the desk. She scrabbled until she found the phone, and someone saw her holding the receiver to her ear. “Call the police!” they shouted at her. 

Anyanka had no intention of calling the police. She dialed the one phone number she knew, the only number which had any chance of calling help. It rang and rang and Anyanka prayed to D’Hoffryn that the slayer didn’t have her phone switched off. 

Finally a sleepy voice answered. “Buffy.” 

“Buffy!” Anyanka yelled into the phone. “Willow’s at the school.” 

***

“Do you actually know where you’re going down here?” Buffy asked, nearly stepping on Spike’s heels as they rounded another corner. 

“Trust me,” Spike said. “I’ve lived in this town for two years.”

“Exactly how does that follow that you, uh, know where you’re going?” Wesley asked. Buffy hadn’t wanted to bring him, but when he’d heard it was Willow at the school, and that Giles was there, he’d armed himself with a stake and insisted. “I will stay out of the fighting,” he’d said, and he looked scared, but Buffy didn’t have time to argue. Buffy had her crossbow, her knife, and a stake on her. Spike had his own stake, and was striding down the sewers confidently, but not fast enough for her taste. 

She would have preferred to make a frontal assault, but Anyanka had told her about the barrier, and Buffy wasn’t foolish enough to assume that it wasn’t double sided. She had no desire to burn up before she even _got_ to Willow. If the vampires had come up from the sewers, that meant that was a path inside. She’d rustled up Spike immediately and asked if he knew the way. They had to throw a blanket over his head to get him to the manhole down the street, but other than that he said it was an easy path. 

It was fairly easy, with only a few places where they had to jump over drainage puddles, and the smell wasn’t too terrible. Wilkins had really made it quite homey for vampires under the streets of Sunnydale. Too homey. A path right into the school? “I should have fucking been there,” Buffy muttered. “Why the fuck couldn’t Snyder have let me _be there_?” 

“School would have been a distraction,” Wesley said. 

“School kept me on my toes!” Buffy snapped. “Kept my mind active. And Giles knew I needed it, and he’s the best fucking watcher I’ve ever had!” 

Wesley flinched. “I realize that,” he said, surprising Buffy. 

“It’s like he knew.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “Of course he knew. The hellmouth was there, Willow was his protege, he _knew_. Not like Dru would have known, but Giles would have guessed. When Willow made her move, it would be at the school.” She grunted in frustration. “I should have fucking _been there!_ ”

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Spike said, rounding another corner. “Uh-oh!” He ducked as a previously bored-looking vampire thug woke up from his annoyed lounge and made a swing at his head. 

Buffy swung Spike out of the way and loosed her crossbow, not in the mood for fancy footwork. The vampire poofed, and Buffy snatched up the bolt while continuing down the tunnel. “Don’t get cocky!” she said, resetting the crossbow as she moved. “Are we almost there?” 

“Did you think that bloke was standing guard just for fun?” Spike asked. “Just up that ladder.”

“If he was standing guard,” Buffy said. She scanned the tunnels and sure enough spotted one more vampire hiding in a lower tunnel, this one battering away at a cell phone that didn’t seem to have signal underground. She kicked him down and dusted him in one stroke, and rescued the phone. The number he was calling was labeled as “Queen W.”

“Let’s hope he didn’t warn her,” Buffy said. “Stay behind me.”

***

Willow wiped the blood from her shoes as quiet finally fell in the gymnasium. The last of the students which had fled there had been slaughtered by one of her minions, and the screams had faded. She felt a little tired, though she hated to admit it. Maintaining the shield was the hard part, and while she’d been able to zap most of those who ran, her lightning was starting to fizzle. She would have to drain more vampires if she wanted to use her powers much more, and she had to tread a fine line with that. While it increased loyalty in the remaining minions, it tended to kill morale, and she needed followers if she was to finish what she’d started here. 

“Were they here?” she asked Xander. “Did we get those white hats?”

Xander dropped the student he’d been sucking on. “I didn’t see them. They’re probably in the library.” 

“The library?” Willow felt anger burning beneath her power. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” 

“I sent the second unit that way,” Xander said. “You said to go where there were the most people.”

“Did you forget why we’re here, Xander?” Willow snapped. “We’re trying to kill _Buffy’s_ people!” She strode over the bodies and marched to the gymnasium doors, blowing them open with a blast of power as she approached them. She stopped. “Xander!” She snapped her fingers and gestured. “Where’s the library?”

“That way,” Xander said, jumping to her side. She took off down the hallway in the direction he’d pointed. She could hear that there were some students or teachers hiding in other classrooms as she passed, but she wasn’t going to waste time hunting every student until she was sure the librarian and his little followers were dead. She turned a corner and saw what must have been the double doors to the library. Some of her minions were beating at the doors, pounding against them, trying the break through a barricade. 

“Idiots,” Willow said, calling to her minions. “Go around by the outside! There’s no sun out there.”

“We checked the other door,” said a minion who had once been a student at the school. “It’s locked from the inside.” 

“Then go through the windows,” Willow barked. “Move!” Some of the minions scattered to the exit, and she focused her attention on the doors. “Well?” she said to Xander. 

Xander jumped to obey her, pounding on the library doors with the minions, and Willow let him for a moment. Just long enough for her to grab one of the minions and suck his power from him. He jolted, stiffening under her grip, and she couldn’t control the drain. His heart dusted as she drained his demonic aura, traveling up his veins from the inside, turning them grey under his skin, until he poofed under her hand. There. Now she had more power again. 

Then she heard shattering glass, and screams from inside the library. She was ready now. She zapped open the doors, and the screams inside redoubled. Willow sent Xander and the minions in ahead of her with a gesture. 

She followed at their heels, her power crackling off her. She was really losing control of it with the fresh minion in her. She had to bleed it off. She cast it out in a dampening spell, subduing everyone inside the room — including the other vampires, but they wouldn’t feel the effects as much as the humans. It wasn’t impossible to move under it, it just made everything slower and difficult, and weak wills usually just lay beneath the lethargy. She peeled the spell off Xander and pulled him to her. “Where’s the librarian?” 

Xander gestured to a man who had fallen by the desk, a shiny lump rising on his forehead from the burst barricade. 

“So you must be Giles,” Willow said. “Pick him up, Xander. I want to see the man who first opened the world for me.” She had seen him as a vampire, of course, but even those memories could be fuzzy if she had relied on her human memories after her turning. Yes. Yes, she recognized him. Not by name, but she’d taunted him and threatened him once or twice. “Where are the others? I want to make sure to kill the others.” 

“I’ll... never tell you!” Giles said, fighting against the dampening spell. 

Willow smiled. “He’ll… never tell me,” she mocked slowly. “I’ll… see about that.” 

“You are not allowed here, young lady!” struggled a whiny little voice. Willow turned her attention to it and saw a tiny man with big ears and officious eyes. She reached down to pick him up with two fingers, like a used tissue, clinging to his tie. The weight of a grown man was nothing to her strength. 

“What’s this one?” she asked Xander.

“Principal Snyder,” Xander said. 

“Principal Snyder.” Willow smiled at him. “He thinks he has power.” The idea was laughable. 

“You’re not invited here,” Snyder said. “I know… I know for a fact that I have expelled all… all….”

“All what? What have you _expelled_ , Snyder? Tell me. All v—? V-v-v…?”

He wouldn’t say vampire. “Problematic elements!” Snyder exploded. 

“Bored now,” Willow said, and casually broke his neck. “Now, Giles,” she said, dropping the corpse to the floor. “You were saying you’d never?” She gestured him over with a crook of her finger. Xander wrestled Giles to her. The librarian had a strong will, and was fighting the dampening spell with every ounce of it. “Never, never tell me… who works with you? Let me see if I can remember.” She looked around the room at the students and few faculty who had made it to the library. Nothing clicked at her memory. The glimpses she had seen of Giles’s white hats were too few and far between for them to have stuck in her brain. But one among the group stood out. He was staring at her with hungry eyes. “You,” she said, pointing at a boy. “Was he one?”

“No!” Giles said, defiant, but Willow knew something was up. 

“Bring him up,” Willow said, and Xander dropped Giles and lugged the boy over. “And what about the other one?” 

“That was Larry,” Xander said. “He’s over there.” He gestured to the boy in the letter jacket with blood on his shirt. 

“Are there any more?” she asked. 

“No,” Giles said, defiant, but his eyes caught at a girl. 

“Xander? Who’s that one?” 

“I don’t recognize her at all,” Xander said. He pulled the brown haired girl up. She didn’t seem much affected by the dampening spell, and looked daggers at Willow as she was brought over, but Giles looked defeated. Well, she could be sure in a minute, if she wanted to.

“Is that all of them?” Willow asked. 

“Go… to hell,” Giles said softly. 

“Wonderful vacation spot, I’m sure,” Willow said. “You think we have the whole squad then?” 

“He’ll never tell us.” 

“I can manage that,” Willow said. She pulled up a new spell. It crackled between her fingers and she popped it out, sparks flying. She meant to only call one, but instead half a dozen secret catchers started flying about the room. Tiny orbs of power floated lazily, waiting for Willow to direct them. She had too much power, and not enough control over it. Well, whatever. She caught one and flicked it at Giles. 

“Did I get all your little student vampire hunters?” she asked again, and one of the motes of power landed on Giles’ forehead. He groaned as pain flickered through his brain, causing an instant headache. She knew it did, because she could hear what he was thinking as the secret catching spell worked through his mind. “Larry… Oz… and Anyanka,” she said as the secret flickered into her mind. “Yes. We got them all.” She wriggled happily. “I like this spell. What other secrets can I catch? How about… where’s Buffy?” 

There was silence from the spell. She pushed again. “Where’s Buffy?”

“Willow!” Xander’s cry came just in time as a crossbow bolt zipped through the air and nearly caught Willow right in the chest. She zapped it just as it contacted her. A split second later and it would have dusted her, but as it was it burned up and fell to charcoal, splitting against her corset. 

“Never mind,” Willow said. “Found her.”

There was a brief scuffle at the door as Buffy smashed one of Willow’s minions in the face with her crossbow, and Spike, who had come in with Buffy, attacked another with a stake. The one Spike was handling dusted, and Buffy was heading for Willow with another stake in her hand when Willow hissed out, “Shhhh!” and pulled her dampening spell over the little knot of heroes at the door. Buffy fought against it, her will or her strength greater than the others, but Xander put Anyanka down and hit Buffy in the face. A minute later he had Buffy’s arms up behind her, and held her before Willow. It was hard for him to manage her, Willow could tell. The slayer was strong, but her Xander knew how to handle her, and it was easier under the dampening spell than it would have been without. 

“This is it?” Willow said as Buffy struggled before her. “One pitiful little girl, and Spike, and… who are you?” There was a third in the doorway, holding a stake, but looking nervous. The dampening spell seemed to have worked too well on the newcomer, but Willow tossed one of her secret catchers at him. “Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, a watcher. A watcher? That’s your claim to fame, you watch things? What were you doing here? What was so exciting that you needed to watch?” 

The answer trickled into Willow’s head. It surprised her. “Buffy’s death? You wanted to see Buffy’s death?” 

“No!” Wesley forced out past the dampening spell. “I did not want that! I was… I wanted….” He glanced at Buffy and then down at the floor. 

“You wanted to prove yourself, because you’re a scared little man who has never faced a vampire,” Willow said, the secret catcher giving her her answer. “A hands off approach, you were told. And then you met Giles. Fighting vampires every night. Ready to fight the council to be what Buffy needed. And you thought maybe you could be that. Just for a brief moment. And maybe… maybe your father would appreciate you for once.” 

“I wanted to help keep her alive,” Wesley said. 

“But if you couldn’t, you wanted to record her death,” Willow added. 

Wesley closed his eyes, but everyone knew it was the truth. 

“A good watcher sees everything. Especially that,” Willow said. “This is fun. I’ll bet the rest of your team have been keeping secrets from you, too. Like this one.” she said, pointing at Larry. “What’s your secret?” She flicked a secret catcher at the big jock and laughed. “He’s gay.” 

“Not a secret,” Larry said, his teeth clenched. 

“But you haven’t mentioned it, either, have you? Worried your little team might not understand?” 

“It didn’t… matter!” Larry gritted out. “What’s it matter when you’re not dating anyone?” 

“And what about you?” Willow asked, flicking a secret catcher at Anyanka. “What’s your secret?” 

“I don’t have any secrets,” Anyanka said slowly. 

“Except that you don’t care who dies, anymore than I do.” Willow said. “Did you know that, slayer?” 

Buffy tried to rip her way out of Xander’s arms, but he grunted, redoubling his strength, and she failed. She was under the dampening spell, and Xander wasn’t. “Anyanka’s a demon, or sort of one,” Buffy said. “Nothing you said about her would surprise me.”

“I’m sure there’s more,” Willow said. “What about you, little boy? What’s your secret?”

“You bitch,” Oz said. “Willow was worth a thousand of you!” 

“Willow’s dead,” Willow said. “I’m Willow now. Do you know about him, slayer? He’s not human.” 

“I am too,” Oz growled. 

“He’s a werewolf, Buffy, did you know that? Did you?” 

Buffy’s eyes flicked to Oz. 

“I wanted to tell you,” he said.

“He didn’t trust you, that’s the other part of the secret,” Willow said. “He trusted Larry, he trusted Giles, they helped him lock up at the full moon, but you? You’re not really friends.” 

“We are!” Oz said. “I would have told you, Buffy. I wanted to. I would have.” 

Buffy closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” she said wearily. 

“Oh, is that where we are?” Willow said. “You’re going to just forgive them all? How about Giles? He _hates_ that he’s not a watcher anymore. He knows you hate watchers, but he still wishes he was one.” 

“I don’t!” Giles said. “Not with what it means.” He hesitated under Buffy’s eyes. “Not now that I know you,” he added. 

“You think you can break me by breaking my team?” Buffy asked. “Or are you just being sadistic?” 

“Well, I _am_ a vampire,” Willow said. “What else am I supposed to be?” She had one secret catcher left. Well, she knew all about Spike already. “So what about your secrets, Buffy? What are you keeping hidden from _them_?” She flicked the last of the secret catchers at Buffy’s head, and the girl groaned. The headache was swift and biting. Willow prodded. It was harder than with the mere humans. Buffy fought her, and her secrets were deeply buried. “You’re not the dutiful slayer. You wish you could go back to your fashion magazines and your proms.” 

“Who wouldn’t wish that!” Buffy demanded. 

Willow pressed deeper. “You’re hiding from the watchers. You _hate_ them. All of them. With a passion beyond words. You… you killed one.” 

“I didn’t!” Buffy growled. 

“You saw one killed. Stiles. Who put you through… a trial… you saw her killed. And the one before. You didn’t protect him when Kakistos grabbed him. Carter. The one who was fucking you between slays.” 

“Shut up.” 

“You kept that secret. You were ashamed. You hated him, but you learned it, every sick and sordid thing he made you do, until you started to enjoy it, and you didn’t want anyone to know… you thought they’d do it again. You thought Wesley might try to take you to his bed….” 

“Shut _up_ ,” Buffy growled through her headache. 

“Like you took Spike to your bed,” she said. “You and Spike are lovers! Oh, that’s delightful. The vampire and the slayer! Fucking like little rabbits secretly in the basement, over and over again, playing your little sex games, your death games, your power games…. Sick and wrong. You knew how wrong it was. But dark little slut that you are, you wanted _him._ ”

Buffy’s headache suddenly surged back into Willow’s brain. She reeled. _You just made a mistake,_ Buffy’s voice sounded in Willow’s skull. _Some secrets only make you stronger._

Out loud Buffy gasped out, “Everyone, send it back!”

“What?” Giles called out. 

“The magic that pulled your secrets from you, it’s in her mind. Send it back! You need to send the magic back. Take the headache, take the secrets, aim it back at her. Every secret you’ve ever had, every petty vengeance, hidden crush, childhood lie. The secrets are truth, and truth is strength. Aim it back!” 

“Stop playing games, girly.” Xander shook Buffy, but Buffy brought up her elbow and hit him in the gut. He lost his grip, and Buffy backed up, taking the stake from Spike. Spike handed it over readily, and forced himself through the dampening field to face Xander, shoving him against the book cage. 

Willow’s headache surged as the Library Squad aimed her own magic back at her. She should have thought of this. She tried to recall the secret catchers from their minds, but they had a grip on them now, and were sending the power back as hard as they could, focusing on their secrets, their truths, their strengths. There were so many. Larry, stealing his big sister’s Playgirls from under her mattress. Giles, sneaking weed into the academy. Wesley, hiding that he’d been crying from his father. Oz’s crush on a fresh faced redhead. Even Anyanka had secrets, that she wasn’t so self-possessed as she pretended, and really had no idea what to do with herself without D’Hoffryn to direct her. 

“The spell is breaking,” Buffy said. “Guys, over here! Touch me, join up. And everyone else! When the spell breaks, when you feel you can move, fight!” The rest of the students perked up, glancing at the vampires through the spell. Willow tried to pull the dampening spell off her minions, but her head ached so. She grunted and staggered back. 

The secrets pouring into her mind grew darker, heavier. The time at university when the watcher had sex with a woman who was probably too drunk. The wolfboy waking up one morning with blood on his hands and mouth before he learned to lock himself up. The librarian and the demon he and his friends summoned, resulting in one of their deaths. The time the jock wedgied a nerd so hard he had to go the hospital. And the ex-vengeance demon had so many deaths to her name, she was nervous to tell Buffy about it. 

Buffy herself had a lifetime of secrets, all stuffed into a few short years. It started with lying about the vampires, then lying about the deaths, then lying about the pain. The watchers dead, over and over and over again, and every one she blamed herself for, even the ones that hadn’t been her fault. The mole people under the city that she watched die. The sex that she had hated, and hated herself for enjoying. The potential girls she’d known Carter was grabbing, and didn’t try to protect. And victim after victim after victim that she hadn’t saved. Even the ones here, now. It was a secret that she blamed herself for all of them. 

“You thought the truth would break me, Willow?” Buffy said, marching forward. Larry and Oz stood at her shoulders, Anyanka stood behind her, the two watchers stood behind them, all their hands reaching out to touch Buffy while Spike held Xander at bay. “Truth is only what we are. And what we are is stronger than you.” 

“I have power,” Willow grunted, backing up a bit from them. Lightning crackled from her fingers as she tried to regain herself. “I _am_ power!” 

“Anyone who won’t stop searching for more power is weak,” Buffy said. “We are what we are. We can better ourselves, but we don’t _need_ to be what we aren’t. And that’s all you’ve been trying to do, isn’t it? You’ve done everything possible to be what you aren’t. You’ve taken the role of the Master. You’ve taken on more power. You’ve drained your followers. You’ve even erased your own past!” 

The secret catchers were working backwards now. They were eating on Willow’s brain, drawing her secrets from her mind, making her powerless. She was weak, she was scared, she was lonely. She’d shed herself of her own life because she’d hated being human, being nothing, being alone. It was tearing at her now. Her secrets were not, and had never been, her strength. It raked at the hollowness she had left of her own tattered mind. She tried to call up her lightning zaps, but they only crackled between her fingers. Her headache was really bad, and she was feeling so tired.

“What have you left now, Willow? What did you give up? The memory of sunshine, of happiness, of love! You’re nothing but the need for power now. And you know what, Willow? That’s never enough.” 

Willow let her lightning power zap forward, but her aim was off. Her head hurt too much to focus. She knew they were all wrestling with headaches, too, but now they’d combined them to shove back into her. She weakened, and she fell to her knees before the reflected onslaught. 

“You should have just killed me, Willow,” Buffy said. “Not tried to play games with me first.” And she plunged forward. 

Willow felt the wood enter her body, felt her ribs part and her heart pierced, felt her own insides begin to dust. She wanted to come up with some witty final line, a quick one shot to be remembered by, but her head ached too much. Instead all that happened was one final glance at Xander, who reached out for her before even her vision faded. 

Willow dusted without saying anything at all. 

***

Everything happened the moment Willow crumbled before Buffy. First, the Library Squad collapsed, exhausted from using mental powers they were not, except maybe for Giles, at all trained for. Even Buffy fell to her knees, but she made herself stay upright, while the others all went to the floor. There were sudden screams as the cloying-honey spell died with Willow, and the humans and the vampires were suddenly at each other's throats again. But another spell had faded, and the sun suddenly popped back through the windows, streaming brightly through the skylight above them. The humans found themselves at a huge advantage when the very light around them became their ally. 

Spike was thrown to the side as Xander keened in fury, then leaped over Buffy and the others to get to the stairs. Giles made a move, pointing after him. “Stop him!” But Xander shoved several humans aside and disappeared within the bookshelves. Spike couldn’t go after him. He was beginning to burn up himself. 

Buffy forced herself back to her feet. Everywhere was chaos. What vampires hadn’t already dusted were being pulled into the sunlight by terrified but determined students. Xander had run into the stacks, but Spike was yelling, the sunlight burning his face and hands. He was trying to pull his coat up, but it wasn’t very adequate. She had two choices, Xander or Spike. She chose Spike. “Quick, get over here,” she called, pulling Spike with her. She whipped the jacket off her back and tossed it over his head, shoving him into the shadows under the library desk. “It’ll be okay, it should be dark enough here. You should be safe.” 

“Did you tell all them that?” Spike asked, indicating the rioting students ranged about the library, the ones gleefully engaged in burning every other vampire in the room to ash. 

“I’ll protect you, sweetie,” she said with an amused grin. “Just stay down.” 

“Oh, fuck you,” Spike said fondly, and hunkered deeper into the shadow, shielding himself with Buffy’s jacket. The library was very sunny. 

Buffy turned back to the others, moving around the desk to help them. She helped Giles up, who was already on his hands and knees. “Xander,” Giles said. 

“We’ll get him.” 

“There’s a way out through the stacks,” Giles said. “Xander knew about it.” 

Buffy sighed at that. “Well, it’s sunny out there,” she said. “Maybe he’ll just burn up. How are all of you?” 

“Head aches,” Anyanka said.

“I think we’ll be okay,” Oz said. “If you’re okay.” 

“I’m fine,” Buffy said. She was a little woozy, but she’d felt worse and fought. 

“I meant, if you’re okay with us,” Oz said. “We were keeping secrets from you.” He looked down. “I was keeping secrets from you.” 

“Everyone has secrets,” Buffy said. “What’s it matter if you’re hiding some insecurity or desire or… or stupid werewolf infection?” She hugged Oz briefly. “I haven’t had friends since before I was chosen.” She looked at all of them. “And now I do. And you just helped save my ass. I won’t trade that just because you weren’t entirely honest all the time. God knows I wasn’t telling you all everything.” 

“No, you weren’t,” Wesley said. “Was Carter really…?”

“Wes,” Buffy said. “Please. You don’t really want to know.” 

“I do, actually,” he said. “He was your watcher.” 

“If the watchers wanted to know such things, they wouldn’t have the system they do,” Buffy said. “One young girl all by herself under the sole authority of some older guy who tells her what to do all the time?” She scowled. “What do they think is going to happen?” 

Wesley shook his head. “Not that.” 

“Yes, that,” Giles said grimly. “And worse. And that’s what I’ve been coming to understand by being Buffy’s…” he stopped. “Friend,” he said. 

Wesley looked down. “I’m sorry I…” 

“We’re all sorry,” Larry said. 

“None of you has anything to be sorry for,” Buffy told them. 

“Did we get them all?” asked a boy near the stairs to the upper levels. “Are there any more vampires?” 

“I don’t think so,” Buffy said. “I’ll check.” She quietly pulled Anyanka aside. “Can you make sure no one dusts Spike while I’m not looking?” 

“Of course,” Anyanka said, and she went to stand behind the desk.

Buffy checked the stacks with a stake in her hand, but there was no one else back there. It was a high school library so “the stacks” weren’t very large. She found the fire exit Giles had mentioned, but it stood open. There was no pile of ash just outside, and there were skidding tire tracks. That didn’t bode well. Xander might well have had an escape plan in place. “Well, fuck,” Buffy muttered, but she went back to tell the others that the library seemed clear of vampires. 

“Now what?” Larry asked when Buffy got back. 

“Now I’m getting out of here, before the authorities come,” Buffy said. “I hate to duck out on everyone, but I don’t want to have to explain this. Giles, I guess that gets to be your task.” 

Giles glanced around at the dead bodies in the room. “Oh. Joy.” 

“I have to get Spike out of here, anyway, before someone decides he needs a suntan. Wes, you don’t officially have any reason to be here, either.” 

“I’ll stay, though,” he said. “They may need help with the survivors.” 

“Suit yourself. I’m getting Spike and heading back.” She went back behind the desk and helped Spike up as he held her jacket over his head. 

“I can’t see,” he complained. 

“I’ll guide you. Come on, basement’s not too far away. Run!” 

She and Spike left the library and ran back down the hallway and finally into the basement. Buffy checked every corner of the basement before they headed down the ladder and back into the sewers, just to make sure Willow hadn’t left any more surprises. She hadn’t. 

“Well, that’s one down,” Buffy said. “One to go.” 

“Are you okay?” Spike asked. “What did you do with that spell?” 

“She was reading our minds, so I turned it back on her,” she said. “Like I said to her, secrets are truth, and truth just makes you stronger.” 

“But our secret’s out now,” Spike said. 

“Everyone’s secrets are out,” Buffy reminded him. “And it doesn’t matter.” She paused. “I wonder why she didn’t try to wheedle out any of your secrets.”

“Well,” Spike said, sounding a little nervous. “Who says I have any?”

Buffy elbowed him in the ribs. “Well, we already know you’re a twisted pervert in bed.” 

“Look who’s talking!” Spike said. 

“Hurry up,” Buffy said. “I want to get home.” 

“Why?” 

Buffy grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and kissed him. “Because a good slay always makes me hot, and I don’t want to fuck you in this sewer.” 

“Slaying makes you hot, huh? Is that a secret?” 

Buffy bit his lip gently. “Not to you.” 


	32. Guilty

  
  


“She’s defeated the vampire-witch,” Wesley said into the phone. 

“What was that?” Travers asked him. 

Wesley had blood on his hands, blood on his suit coat, blood in his nose. The high school stank of magic and scorched flesh and blood and blood and blood, everywhere. The unhurt survivors were rushing about, or crying, or had run home the moment the barrier had collapsed. Those that had been bitten but not killed were huddled together, or laid out on stretchers being carried to hospital, the ambulances traveling back and forth, back and forth, as more and more survivors were found amongst the dead. 

Around a quarter of the school population had died. It was over a hundred people, most of them students. It was a mass killing event that would not only leave a scar on the local community, it would stand out as being one of the worst massacres in the Watchers’ records, rivaling anything Angelus or any other master vampire had done at his most depraved. 

And Buffy had been sent to kill this monster _alone?_

Wesley had been deeply affected by how his own tiny part in fighting with Buffy had suppressed the vampire-witch and made it possible for Buffy to defeat her. Without her team surrounding her, Buffy would have died, and the rest of these children would have died, and that would have been entirely on the Watchers. Where were their teams of gun-toting para-military? Where were the witches and the seers and the magic users who could have located or broken in to Willow months ago? Where was the support that would have solved this problem before it became this horrifying scene of carnage that was raking at Wesley’s heart? Even if Buffy needed to be at the vanguard of the assault, why, why, _why_ did the Watchers insist she had to stand alone? 

“Buffy Summers has defeated Willow. The vampire-witch is no more. She did it.” 

“Ah.” Travers had a hesitation to his voice that made Wesley uncomfortable. Granted, he was calling after hours in Britain, the Watchers offices closed, and he’d had to call the direct line to Travers’ house. But this news was too important to put off, so important that the moment Wesley no longer seemed to be needed to stop the bleeding of the wounded or help carry the injured, he’d found a free phone and dialed. “And she survived?” Travers asked. 

“Yes, of course she survived! She defeated the vampire!” 

“Often a slayer will die of her injuries after a great foe. Do tell me the details.” 

“We helped her,” Wesley said. “Myself and Giles and some of those she’s recruited to her cause, we used the creature’s magic against her.” And Wesley relayed some of the fight. 

“So you’re telling me this Willow knows of the Watchers now,” Travers said. “You let slip about our organization?” 

“I let slip? _I_ let slip? We are not as secret as you pretend, Mr. Travers,” Wesley almost shouted into the phone. “And the witch is _dead_ , so it’s not as if she’s telling her followers.” 

“Did all of the vampires die? Did any hear about us?” 

“You’re not listening, Mr. Travers. Buffy defeated a nearly invincible foe. She’s amazing. She’s positively phenomenal.” 

“But she needed help to do it.”

Wesley wanted to hit the man. “Yes, I helped. Who wouldn’t want to help? This place is a charnel house, and anyone who could see that and complain that Buffy needed a little help would be a monster themselves.” 

“Well, I’m glad you were there to assist her, Wesley,” Travers said placatingly. “Is there anything else you need to report?” 

“Yes,” Wesley said. “Miss Summers has been grossly abused by one of our own.” The very idea left a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “While she has been sent daily to risk her life, she was being sexually molested by her watcher Carter, and lord knows what other abuses she has been subjected to.” 

“Molested? Has she complained to you of this?” 

“The truth of it came out under Willow’s attack.” 

“Buffy was weak enough to allow that to slip?” Travers sounded shocked. “To an _enemy_?” 

“I told you, there was a spell,” Wesley said. “There was no fighting it, Willow was probing our minds for secrets.” 

“And she probed both the slayer and yourself? Why were you even there?” 

“We were all there!” Wesley wanted to shake the man through the telephone. “Buffy’s recruits were already at the school, and Buffy brought myself, and her trained vampire Spike to help fight them.”

“So Spike is still in the picture,” Travers said. “I thought you’d reported that he’d killed a human and was no longer to be trusted?” 

“Apparently the human was in league with Willow, and mostly he just saw to it that he died. The geas is still in place.” 

“But Buffy granted him the freedom to be able to _see to it_ that a human died?” 

“Buffy trusts him.”

“Are you certain of that? Are you sure the slayer doesn’t have doubts?” 

“They’re very close. She knows him intimately.” 

Travers made a heavy pause. “How intimately?” 

“Intimately enough!” Wesley said, not liking how this conversation had turned. He was calling to relay Buffy’s triumph, and to report a crime by at least one watcher, and instead Travers was interrogating him on Buffy’s fitness as a slayer. 

“Now tell me the truth, Wesley, this is very important,” Travers said low. “Has the slayer taken this vampire to her bed?” 

“What does that even matter?”

“Has she been corrupted?” Travers insisted. 

“She was violated! Did you miss that fact? I was calling to tell you that her watcher _violated_ her trust, abused the sacred relationship between watcher and slayer, used her for his own sordid pleasures, and you’re worried about the vampire?” 

“ _If_ such a thing even happened with her watcher, which we cannot be certain of, as we have only her word for it, I’m sure Carter knew what he was doing.” 

“What?” 

“Slayers are more mature than their years,” Travers said. “Some watchers must take that aspect of their slayers in hand to prevent the very scenario you are hinting has taken place with this Spike.” 

Wesley felt sick. Travers knew. He knew that this happened. It had probably happened before. And if Travers didn’t care that it had happened with already chosen slayers, would he care if it had happened with younger potentials and their watchers? Some of the girls collected by their watchers were removed from their parents at only twelve. In some cultures, where vampires were an acknowledged threat, the potential girls were trained even younger. The girl in Jamaica who was meant to be called next if the seers’ predictions came true, she had never known her parents. Was she also being abused by her watcher? If Travers’ reaction was anything to go by, none of the Watchers Council would care if she was. 

Wesley nearly quit. He nearly announced his resignation and slammed the phone down where he stood. Instead he made himself assess the situation. It would be better to attack this from the inside. He should call his father, try to rearrange the system, figure out… figure out something. But he was too horrified to think what. Travers had said something else. Something important. Wesley shook his head. “What was that?” 

“I asked again, do you know what has transpired between the slayer and William the Bloody?” 

_They’re friends. They’re lovers. And the vampire is more trustworthy than you seem to be,_ Wesley didn’t say. “She keeps him under tight control,” Wesley said instead. “When he steps out of line, she will torture him into obedience. Does that answer your question?” 

“Well,” Travers said. “We’ll see. Are there any other dangerous elements in Sunnydale?” 

Wesley was too shocked by his own lie to come up with another one. “Some. One of Willow’s minions escaped.”

“So she _did_ let the enemy know information about the Watchers?” 

“No. No, he… he’s only a fledgling,” Wesley said. “And the Watchers aren’t that well kept a secret. She didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“She’s so weak she needs help, she’s let vital information slip, and she’s _working_ with a vampire. Yes, it sounds like she’s well in hand,” Travers said. “Thank you for your report, Wesley. I know what to do.”

Travers clicked the phone off, and Wesley found himself staring at a dead receiver. He wanted to call his father, get the whole council in on this, but something stayed his hand. A terrible thought had just entered into his head. What if his father knew about these abuses, too? What if… what if it had infected the entire council? What if the whole system was structured to use and abuse these children, and he had been part of it his entire life? 

He was standing in a killing field, with dead and injured children ranged as far as the eye could see, up and down the corridor, knee deep in the gymnasium, dotting and peppering the grounds. And Wesley realized that, metaphorically, it was as if he always had been. 

He had to talk to Giles. 

***

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Buffy said suddenly, pulling away from Spike on the bed. Spike blinked up in bewilderment. She’d rushed him down the stairs to the basement, stripped him of his coat and shirt, pressed him down on the bed, and started kissing him as if his kisses were her life’s breath, but the desperation had felt wrong to her, as images of dead teenagers kept flashing before her eyes. She knew she shouldn’t care. It was all part of the gig, death and destruction were part and parcel of her existence as the slayer. But it bothered her. And just jumping to fuck it all away, fuck a vampire when so many of her fellow classmates (no matter how briefly) had just been slaughtered by one seemed like she was minimizing their loss. She wanted him, but she didn’t _want_ to be the kind of person who would want him right then, and that was tearing her apart inside.

“What’s wrong?” Spike asked. He sounded flabbergasted, and Buffy didn’t blame him. He was built for slaughter. There were no dead children dancing in _his_ evil mind.

“I feel guilty.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “For shagging me?” he asked. “Don’t let Willow get to you, love.” 

“Not for being with you. For doing this at all.”

“Don’t tell me you suddenly miss your virginity.” 

“Shut up,” Buffy snapped, and he shut. “I shouldn’t want to be doing this right now. I should be crying into my pillow at everything I saw back there.” She rubbed her eyes. Why wasn’t she crying? It was wrong to not cry. It had been pretty awful, all those students slaughtered, all that trauma, all that death. She should be crying. Instead something inside her was burning, just burning her raw, and she wanted to burn it out in Spike, but taking pleasure after all that death seemed callous and evil. “I can’t do this.” 

He let her stare into the darkness in her mind for a long moment. “You want to feel bad?” The question was confused, probing. Buffy sighed. 

“I already feel bad. But I shouldn’t feel good. This was my fault.” 

“This was _not_ your fault.” 

“I should have saved them. I should have been there, I should have fought Snyder so I could have been there.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have let them die.” 

Spike sat up from the bed. “First off, pet, you didn’t _let_ Willow do anything. You hared off to save the day the second you heard, like you always do. Second, what good does feeling guilty about it _now_ do?” 

“You don’t understand,” Buffy said. “You can’t even feel guilt.”

Spike didn’t answer. There was a heavy silence as that tiny but true accusation landed between them.

“You haven’t felt guilty before,” he finally said. 

“You haven’t seen me fail before.” 

“You didn’t fail.”

“I didn’t succeed in time.” 

Spike said nothing to that. 

“I can’t do this,” Buffy said again, but she didn’t get up off the bed. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” His voice was low and dark.

“Still feels like I should be punished.”

There was a beat. “You want me to do that?” Spike asked. “I can do that.” 

Buffy glanced at him. He had a softness in his eyes that didn’t quite match what he was offering. She realized she was awfully quick to jump to _punishment_ in her own mind. She’d jumped there for Spike, and she was jumping there for herself. “You just said I don’t deserve to be punished,” she said. 

“I can punish you exactly as much as you deserve.” He sat up and nuzzled her neck, his breath tickling at her ear. His cool hands reached around her body and held her against his chest. It felt good… and that was bad. 

“You can’t take away my guilt,” Buffy said.

“I can try,” Spike whispered against her ear. “Let me try. Make you feel bad so you can feel better.”

“I don’t know how to do that.” 

“I do,” he said. He left it at that. 

Buffy bit her lip. “If you think you can….”

Spike kissed her shoulder, just at her collar. “What was your favorite book as a child?” he whispered.

Well, that question surprised her. “Um… not real into kids' books. I loved the Ice Capades.” 

“Perfect,” he said. “You mention the Ice Capades if I hurt you too badly.” And without further preamble he grabbed her hair and dragged her down on the bed. “Because I won’t listen to _stop._ ”

“Whoa, wait, stop!” she said automatically. 

“Not listening,” he said, but it was teasing. 

Oh. _Oh_. Okay, she got it. She’d never been in a position to use a safeword before, but she’d heard of them. “Okay then,” she said, relaxing a bit. “Don’t stop.” 

“Well, that’s no fun.” Spike flipped her over and smacked her ass. “Tell me to stop.” 

It didn’t hurt much. “Stop,” she said. 

“Go on.” He smacked her again. 

She didn’t feel it, but she did it. “Stop, stop.”

“I know you’re just placating me. Keep begging,” Spike said, smacking her ass through her jeans again and again. 

“Stop. Stop, please stop,” she said, as Spike added, “Go on,” whenever she flagged. The words were facetious at first, but they started to mean something else in her mind as she said them, over and over. She felt strange. “Stop,” she said, while Spike showed no sign of stopping. The blows grew stronger as he continued, finally starting to hurt. “Stop, I want you to stop.” 

No one else ever stopped, either, she realized. The vampires and the watchers and the relentless overwhelming flood of monsters, they never stopped, no matter how many times she begged in her heart that they would. Spike wouldn’t listen to _stop_. But he’d given her a key to make him stop -- presuming he would if she used it, which she believed he would, or he wouldn’t have bothered to give it to her. Of course he might have just given it to her to tease her, but really, she believed in him. And now that she held that key, it felt pretty good to have Spike just hit her over and over, echoing the shape of the world. It wasn’t very hard, actually, given how much pain they both knew she could take. 

He spanked her on both cheeks pretty thoroughly. He was nice enough to do both sides, so the pain wasn’t uneven. Her ass felt hot, tingling between the strokes, and she clenched her glutes to vary the sensation of the pain. This was pain. This was punishment. That was good, right? 

Then he started rubbing her through her jeans between strikes, sliding over the stinging heat, tickling between her legs before he smacked her again, over and over. “You a bad girl, Buffy? You need to be punished?”

“Yes,” Buffy whispered. 

“What was that?”

“I’m a bad girl.” She shifted and looked over her shoulder at him. “Is that all you’re going to do?” It didn’t seem like enough.

“Shut up, let me punish you,” Spike said, shoving her back on the bed. “Spread your legs.” 

Buffy did as she was bid, and Spike redoubled his spanking, climbing between her legs to force them wider. She heard his belt buckle clink, and a moment later a sharper pain laced across her back. He’d folded his belt and was smacking her with the middle of it, flat lines of pain that stung, but did not bruise. Okay, _that_ hurt. “Oh, fuck,” she whispered. 

“We’ll get to that,” Spike said. “First you need your whipping.” He hit her. “Is this what you deserve, Buffy?” he asked. He hit her again. “Letting all those kids die?” Again. “All your fault, of course,” he said. Again. “All your fault Willow took over.” Again. “All your fault she hated the school.” Again. “All your fault you didn’t kill her.” Again. “All your fault you couldn’t protect them.” 

Buffy cringed as Spike put words to everything she was feeling. “Yes,” she said. 

“All your fault that sometimes strength and speed and power don’t do anything,” he said, hitting her again. “All your fault that some things are just too big to kill all at once.” Again. “All your fault that you’re the slayer, and it’s _your_ job to put it right.” Again. “All your fault that you’re the only one who can do it.” 

That twisted inside her. Her head sank onto the mattress and she sagged. “Yes,” she said. 

“That’s right. It’s all.” He hit her. “Your.” Again. “Fault.”

Tears started to well up, the tears that wouldn’t come before. “Yeah,” she whispered. Her voice trembled. 

Spike stopped at the tremble. “Sit up and suck my cock,” he said. “That’s all you’re good for. Just a place for monsters to take their pleasure.” 

Buffy sniffed and moved over on the bed, crawling up to Spike in an abject fashion, obediently unzipping his jeans and helping him pull them off, kneeling down beside the bed and letting him grab her by the hair, forcing her mouth over him, feeling his thickness between her lips, across her tongue, hitting the back of her throat. She gagged a little as he forced her head down over him, pushing deep into her again and again. It was very intrusive. It was what she deserved.

“That’s right. That’s right, just a place for my cock to go. Suck it, you useless cunt. Go on.” 

She did, and it was good at first, feeling manhandled, feeling used. But it was hard to maintain, because she needed to breathe, and it was getting hard to. She struggled a little. Spike didn’t push her, or at least didn’t push her to take his cock anymore. He pushed her off him and onto the floor, making her feel bad that she hadn’t wanted to let him force her anymore. She almost apologized, but it really had been getting hard to breathe. 

Spike didn’t seem upset. He stood up and smacked his belt against his hand. “Strip, bitch,” he said. “Get naked. Get down on your knees and beg me to fuck you.” 

Buffy closed her eyes. Fuck, she was sick. This was actually making her feel better, and shouldn’t it make her feel worse? But she already knew shoulds and shouldn’ts were always up in the air. Life had taught her that. She lifted her shirt and bra over her head, and wriggled out of her jeans, kicking her boots off. She went back down to her knees and looked up at him. “Please fuck me, Spike. That’s all I’m good for.” 

Then Spike surprised her. He closed his eyes and reeled. He didn’t speak for a moment, and Buffy almost asked what was wrong. Then he swallowed and focused his eyes back on her. “Get up on the bed,” he said. His voice was raw. “Get on the bed, on your knees.” 

Buffy crawled up on the bed and took the position, her ass up in the air. Spike came up behind her and rubbed her cunt with his cock, over and over again, gentle, persistent. “Say you want it, slayer.” His voice was low and earnest. “Say you want the monster inside you. Say it.”

“I want you, Spike,” Buffy said. “Please, fuck me like I deserve.” 

Spike made a sound that was almost a laugh, and shoved his cock deep inside her. “That’s right. You deserve it, bitch.” He thrust inside her and hit her with the belt at the same time. It was much harsher on bare skin, making Buffy cry out. “You deserve it. Say you deserve it!”

“I deserve it!” Buffy said into the mattress. 

Spike thrust again, hitting her again. Over and over, thrust and strike, thrust and strike, pleasure and pain at the same moment, until Buffy screamed low, half muffled in the blankets, and Spike said, “That’s right. Now use your fingers. Make yourself come.”

That wasn’t part of the deal. Wasn’t she supposed to be feeling _bad?_ “I don’t want to.” 

“Do it, bitch! I wanna feel you come around me, so do it!” He hit her hard. “I said do it!” 

Buffy reached down and touched her clit. It was full and hungry and she groaned, feeling bad for wanting it. 

“Go on! Go on, do it while I fuck you, do it!” 

Buffy rubbed and rubbed at herself, grunting and whimpering, and Spike hitting her and hitting her along with his thrusts, until the pain and the pleasure hit all at once and she screamed again, unsure if she hated herself for feeling good, or loved it all the more for the pain. “This is what you deserve, isn’t it, Buffy?” Spike said as the orgasm rocked through her. “To feel good. To feel good because you are good. Because you’re the best fucking person on the fucking planet, and nothing that happened was your fault. Say it!” 

“It….” Tears were tickling at her again, the pain and the pleasure tangled to rip the emotion from her. “But it was.” 

“Say it, slayer!” He hit her hard.

“It was….” He hit her again. “Ow. It wasn’t my fault,” she said, and the tears broke in earnest then, shooting heat through her face, making her eyes blur and her heart pulse. Spike put the belt down and put both hands on her hips, fucking her hard, but steadily, residual pleasure from her orgasm spreading with every movement. 

“Keep saying it,” he said, his voice stern. 

“It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t,” she said through her tears, sobbing and shuddering, and she cried into the blankets as Spike fucked it all away. 

She barely noticed as he grunted his final pleasure into her, instead sobbing cathartically, shuddering as she lay on the bed, the truth drilled into her harder than his blows, harder than his cock. He pulled out, sliding up beside her, dragging her naked, shuddering body into his arms. “That’s right, pet, it wasn’t,” he whispered, kissing the tears from her cheeks. “It’s never your fault. None of it was ever your fault, love. You’re the slayer, you’re the hero, you’re a goddess. You can’t be everywhere. It was never your fault.” 

“But I should be able to stop it,” she whimpered. 

“You can,” he said, kissing her cheeks and her eyes, over and over. “You do. You do everything possible. You stop it every day. You make death with your hands and turn the evil into dust. That’s what you do. That’s what you’ve always done.” 

“I--” Buffy choked on what she was going to say next. She’d almost let it out. _I love you_. It was impulsive, like a little girl says it to her parents, like a wife says it to her husband, instinctive. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered instead. 

“I know,” he said. “But it’s not your fault.” He kissed her softly. “It’s not your fault.” 

She curled up in his arms, and he sat up and rocked her gently, kissing her forehead, her hairline, rubbing her shoulders, occasionally murmuring, “It’s not your fault, slayer. It’s never your fault.” 

Finally her tears slowed and Spike just held her. Finally, finally, after the tears had ceased, after they lay in quiet serenity for a few minutes, Buffy gave a sigh of complete surrender. He was right. That was what she’d needed. It had been perfect. 

“How did you know all that?” she asked. 

“That it’s not your fault? ‘S obvious.” 

“No, how to make me feel better.” 

Spike hesitated. “You really want to know?” 

“Yeah, I really do.” 

“Dru needs it sometimes,” he said. “Needed it. I guess she doesn’t need it now, or not from me.”

“But she’s a vampire. She can’t feel guilt, either.”

“She was human once. And a really good human. She remembered. When her visions grew large, or the memories came up, or she dreamed the wrong thing, she remembered. She blamed herself for what Angelus did to her family, her convent. He killed them all, and it wasn’t her fault, either.” 

“And you could make her feel better?” 

“This was gentle,” Spike said. “She liked it lots rougher.”

Buffy hesitated with what she wanted to say next. She wondered what Spike had been like when he was a man, what kind of self-sacrificing, generous soul he must have had, how sweet he had to have been. Even as a vampire, he was not only loving, but able to adapt himself to his lover’s needs. Even if they were strange ones. Even when he himself couldn’t quite understand. She wanted to tell him how glad she was she’d found him, how beautiful he was in his dichotomies, how much… how much she was coming to love him. But would he even understand that, either? Her emotions were human. His love was vampiric, and was probably still aimed at Drusilla, anyway. 

Finally she left all those thoughts behind and just closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she said against his chest. 

“You’re welcome, slayer,” he said. “You’re always welcome.” 


	33. Firefight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mass violence.

“So Xander isn’t here.” Buffy put a big black X through Crawford Street on her map. They were huddled around the dining table, Spike, Buffy, Anyanka, and the two watchers. Larry and Oz would have liked to be there, but their parents seemed pretty traumatized knowing there’d been an attack on the school, and now that the sun had set they both felt they needed to be at home to reassure them.

Spike was in a pissy mood. The sex that afternoon had been breaking new ground for him. He’d never bothered with safewords before, but he _had_ hunted at BDSM clubs, and he knew how the process was supposed to work. He wouldn’t have bothered now, except he was Buffy’s now, and Buffy was human, or sort of human, so he knew he’d have to adapt some of how he worked in order to account for her humanness. He hadn’t expected her to actually _want_ to be punished, either, even with her penchant for making love amidst soft whispers about her murder, but there she was, wanting him to be strong for her just like Drusilla had, and he knew how to do it, and god help him, it made him love her even _more_. 

But after he and Buffy had snuggled a bit, Buffy said it was likely Xander had made it back to his lair by now, and if all of Willow’s other spells faded when she died, it was likely the misdirection spell was zapped, too. This meant they couldn’t spend the afternoon shagging and snuggling as Spike would have liked, but instead had to get back into their clothes, troop up the stairs, use a blanket to get into Spike’s Desoto, and see if Xander was lurking at Crawford Street. Buffy didn’t feel the need for the rest of the team, since Xander had no magic, and she could handle a group of minions by herself. 

Turned out, she didn’t have to. There were no minions at Crawford Street, no Xander, nobody at all. Well, plenty of bodies, but no one alive. Buffy staked them to be sure they wouldn’t rise, leaving tiny splinters of wood in their hearts after the initial punch. It had worked on bodies she couldn’t be sure of in the past.

Spike had been hoping he could collect some of the things he’d had to abandon when he hightailed it out of there with Drusilla back at the start of all this, but he found that his rooms had been entirely trashed. Willow and Xander hadn’t cared about the state of their minions, and apart from a couple of rooms that had been set up for their personal use, the rest of Crawford Street had been reduced to the state of a junkies’ flophouse. Drusilla’s dolls had been used to wipe up blood spills or for kindling or simply broken for the fun of it, and all of Spike’s albums had been tossed about. He thought they’d been using them to play frisbee. They were completely unplayable now, even his vintage copy of The White Album. 

Spike had stood in the rubble that was now his album collection, not to mention his clothes and other sundries, and found he was completely unable to contain himself. He’d crumpled into tears. Buffy didn’t see much of it, as they had split up and she was busy searching the upper levels of the mansion, which didn’t have curtains on all the windows. But she showed up just as he was starting to get a grip on himself, and put her arm around his shoulders. 

Spike blustered and managed to convince her that he was angry. “Dozy bastards,” he’d said, kicking at the debris. “Don’t know a vintage collection when they see one.” He thought he’d sold it, and that Buffy believed him, but Spike was having a harder time lying to himself. It wasn’t at all about the albums. The truth was, he wasn’t happy that Willow was defeated. He was one step closer to having to make decisions about himself and Buffy, and the idea of that was terrifying. He’d been frightened white that Xander was going to be there, and the relief when he wasn’t, mixed with the disgust at the destruction of his and Drusilla’s property, had broken through all his bravado and brought up those traitor tears. 

He and Buffy finished the search and then called Alan Finch, leaving a message when they were told he was out, since it wasn’t urgent enough to tell the secretary to call his cell phone. “Crawford Street is clear. There are bodies. It’ll probably stay clear, but make sure it’s daylight when the police come to clean it out.” 

Then they went back home -- with a brief stop off to pick up pizzas, as Anyanka and the watchers had been released by the authorities at the school to go home, too, and they definitely needed food after everything -- and set out making notes and speculating about where Xander might have fled, and whether or not he had any minions left to work with him. 

“They’re not minions anymore. I don’t think Xander has the chops to play Big Bad. Now they’d just be a gang,” Spike said. He was munching on pepperoni with extra pepper flakes. 

“Just because they’re only a gang now doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous,” Buffy said. She had notes all over the map Giles had provided, along with soda cans and coffee cups and plates full of pizza. She started tapping spaces on the map. “The factory is burned. The Bronze has been taken over by Alan, and I don’t think he’s keen on giving it back to vampires.” 

“I heard at the school he had reverted the lease and was going to convert the club to office space,” Anyanka said. “Another club might just lure vampires to the scene of the Master’s court.” 

“You’re probably right. Maybe we should check it, though. Xander might take it into his head to hide there temporarily.” 

“He’s just as likely to hide in the sewers, or the caves, or the dock warehouses, or skip town altogether,” Spike said. “That’s what I’d do.” 

“Is it really?” Anyanka asked. “If you’d been defeated and Drusilla had been dusted, you’d just leave town and not look back?” 

Spike looked up at Anyanka, because he knew that was the exact opposite of what he would do. The images of what he _would_ do suddenly flickered in his head, and they seemed to flicker into Buffy’s head too, because they looked at each other, and Buffy’s eyes widened.

The whoop of a siren made them all jump. It was right outside their house, and it didn’t drive past. It was the quick burst of noise when the police don’t turn the siren on full blast. Anyanka went to the window. “There’s like four police cars out there,” she said, turning around. The red and blue lights flickered through the blinds, casting an eerie light on her face. 

The doorbell rang, and was accompanied by furious knocking at the front entrance. Buffy stood up. “Everyone, stay calm.” She went to front hall and announced, “I am opening the door!” loud enough to be heard outside. She didn’t want anyone startled, and she already knew the cops in this town had a hair trigger. She opened it to find Alan Finch flanked by four police, their hands on their guns, looking behind themselves nervously. 

“Mr. Finch,” Buffy said. “News?” 

“You need to come with me,” Finch said.

“Excuse me?” Buffy said. 

Alan stepped forward to cross the threshold. “I am inviting myself in,” he said, and Buffy nodded, the Sunnydale half-invitation that was customary by now. 

“What’s going on?” she asked. 

“You need to come with me, _now_ ,” Alan said. “There’s a mass shooter on a rooftop downtown, killing everyone who comes within view.” 

“Isn’t that a human matter?” Giles asked. 

“This is a vampire,” Alan said. “We set up snipers to try and take him down, but the bullets just ripped through him, and then he took out the snipers. He’s set fires, they’re catching down Main Street. We think he has followers, because more fires keep flaring up, and people keep having to leave their apartment complexes, but they can’t because they get shot. We can’t put the fires out, because he shoots the firefighters, and we can’t get the wounded out, because he just makes more. People are in hiding, we can’t get the authorities in. It’s carnage.” 

“What do you think we can do about it?” Anyanka asked. “This isn’t a demon problem.” 

“Yes, it is,” Buffy said. “It’s Xander. It’s got to be. This is his revenge. Spike?”

“On it,” Spike said, slipping on his coat. 

“I’ll get your crossbow,” Wesley said. “We’ll be right there.”

“No,” Buffy said. 

That surprised everyone else, but not entirely Spike.

“But Buffy, you need us,” Giles said. 

“Not for this I don’t.” 

“But we’re your team,” Wesley said. 

“I appreciate that,” Buffy said. “But this is different from Willow. This is a ranged fight at night on a vampire’s ground. You’ll just get yourselves killed.”

“We know the risks,” Giles said.

“This isn’t just risk. This is why the slayer works alone. I can get closer by myself.” 

“But you’re taking Spike,” Anyanka said. 

“This is my fight as much as hers,” Spike said. “Xander wouldn’t even be out there if it weren’t for me.”

“That’s not true,” Giles said. 

“Buffy knows it is,” Spike said seriously. “I didn’t hold him. She didn’t chase him. She protected me instead. Come on, pet.” He had collected her crossbow while Wesley was gaping, and he pressed it into her hand. 

“Do you, uh, have enough bolts?” Giles asked with an air of a father sending his daughter out on her first day of school. 

“Let me get you an extra stake,” Anyanka said, jumping for the pile by the door. 

“I would have stood with you,” Wesley said quietly. 

“I know. Thank you, guys. All of you.” Buffy took the stake from Anyanka while Spike collected a couple for himself. “Stay safe. Keep an eye out for fire setters and don’t invite anyone in. Tell the boys I said goodbye.”

“You’re coming back from this,” Giles said. “I know you are.”

“We’ll see,” Buffy said. She turned back to Alan. “You’ll get me as close as you can?” 

“We’ve set up a perimeter,” Alan said. “Come with me.” 

“No sirens, and turn those lights off. I don’t want to announce I’m on my way.” 

Spike and Buffy were bundled into the back of a patrol car, while Giles, Wesley, and Anyanka stood in the doorway, watching them drive away.

Spike knew this was the end. He watched Buffy as they drove through the night. Her eyes were fixed out the windscreen, preparing mentally for the fight ahead. She didn’t even look at him. Spike wanted to say something, to tell her good luck, to promise her his support, to confess how much he loved her. Instead he said, “This’ll be a lark, eh?” 

Buffy finally looked at him. “We’re not gonna make it.” 

That was blunt. “Be a hell of a blaze of glory, then.”

She looked back out the windscreen. 

This was his last chance. He’d never get another one. Her face was grim and determined and her eyes were dark, her mind fixed on the task ahead. He swallowed. “I know this was never real,” he said. “We both knew we were playing with life and death. But if I ever made you feel death coming… know you made me feel alive.”

He was trembling with what he’d said. It ended up sounding much deeper and more powerful than he’d intended, and it made him feel vulnerable to have said it. He looked down at his knees as the silence filled the car again. He hoped the cop driving wasn’t listening too closely. He almost hoped Buffy hadn’t listened too closely. He hoped--

Buffy’s warm hand reached out and claimed his. She still didn’t look at him, but her fingers slowly laced into his, almost casually, and she didn’t let go. Spike closed his eyes and felt her life touching his for what they were both pretty sure would be the last time. 

***

Xander caught sight of another struggling human, half hiding behind an SUV. He sighted down the barrel of his rifle. Squeeze the trigger, make it fire, and the human was dead, or at least faking it. The shots echoed off the buildings surrounding them, and the M14 felt powerful in his hands. He should have done this before. He didn’t have any training with guns, of course, but what training did it really take to aim and shoot? With vampire senses, it was probably even easier, though he didn’t have any human memories of shooting a gun to compare it to.

He had only four followers to work with, and he’d had to gear them up with powerful speeches to make them willing to fight with him, and not just go on their way. Willow had been the one with the power and the personality. Xander was a follower, and inherently they knew it. 

Xander was still following. Willow might have been dust, but he was still following her. He would always follow her. Even into the maw of fucking death, just as she had walked strongly and confidently, even when he’d reminded her of the option to just leave. Willow would have said it was a waste. The idea of Willow and _waste_ was like a sliver in his heart. Willow’s life had been a waste -- they should have gathered their minions and gone, left the town to the fucking slayer and just found an unlife somewhere. But that wasn’t Willow. Willow always strove to be better. Willow had insisted on winning, on torturing the humans first. And now she was gone, leaving Xander behind to pick up whatever shred of dignity the vampires had left. 

Fortunately the minions left behind were some of the weakest willed, so he’d been able to direct them. That was the reason they were still alive. Xander had left two vans ready for escape routes for him and Willow, one near the library fire exit, and one near the main entrance, with two of the least skilled minions in each. Willow had been confident, but Xander liked having back-up plans. When Willow’s shield spell collapsed, they’d fled -- fortunately with Xander in one of the vans. If they’d been any more competent they’d have been in the school with him and Willow, slaughtering their way through the students. 

They were doing fairly well at slaughtering their way through random civilians and lighting fires now. Xander had used his time between fleeing from the school and sunset to raid the Sunnydale military base, driving through their checkpoints, killing the army guards, plowing the vans right through the armory doors themselves. It had been remarkably easy to raid, which had surprised him. He hadn’t been sure that getting the ammo itself hadn’t been a suicide mission. But the Sunnydale armory was apparently not staffed by the best men, or else the best men had already been depleted by the Master’s forces, because all Xander had to do was be willing to be shot and keep out of the sunlight and he’d driven right in and out with everything he’d needed. 

He had several bullets in his body from that raid, and he had several more now from the police snipers, but he was able to ignore the pain and do what needed to be done. And what needed doing was killing as many citizens of Sunnydale as possible to call out the slayer, or lacking that, just to cause destruction. The future didn’t matter. Dust didn’t matter. He had to end this somehow, and he wasn’t weak and pathetic enough to do anything as simple as walk into sunlight. No, he had to take as many of these pitiful, stinking human maggots as he could along with him. He wanted to tear them all apart, but he hadn’t Willow’s power. Firepower would have to do. 

The armory hadn’t carried any bullet proof vests or sniper rifles, which was a shame, but there were plenty of point-and-shoot M14s, and he’d issued one to each of his men, loaded them up with tactical jackets and extra ammo, and also managed to find a big box of fragmentation grenades. He’d been disappointed by the look of the grenades. Trained only from war movies, he’d expected the green egg or pineapple grenades he’d seen depicted in everything from WWI movies to modern TV shows, but apparently those had long been replaced by these grey, spherical things labeled M67 on the box. Still, they’d blown people up sufficiently — Xander had checked at the base — and it was nice to be able to add to their arsenal. He’d also collected a handful of really nifty looking mines, which he had to spend an hour studying the schematics of, but they were fairly easy to manage if you didn’t care much about collateral damage. 

Then they’d loaded the vans up with cans of gasoline, found a place to hunker down and plan a little bit, and waited for sunset when they could do the most damage with absolute impunity. There was an edge to Main Street where there was a four-building apartment complex and one taller hotel. The hotel was abandoned, since it wasn’t safe to not stay in a private home, but it was a good vantage point. With the curfew, everyone was inside at night, and all Xander had to do was have his men break a few windows, start a few fires, and then guard the entrances while he waited atop the hotel to start picking off the victims. Once the authorities had shown up, he had even more targets. 

Xander sighted through the windows of the buildings, but the humans had wised up, and even with the fires they weren’t standing in sight. No, wait… there! Someone was eyeing the gap between two buildings, their head just peeking out. Xander let out a burst of gunfire, and the edge of the building exploded in shrapnel. He didn’t know if he’d gotten his target or if they’d ducked back behind the building, but Xander had to reload, anyway. He reached into the bag at his feet for another clip. 

It wasn’t very vampire, he admitted that. Usually a vampire liked to feel the death in their bodies, hold the murder to them, absorb it inside, feed on it as much as on the blood. A vampire liked a close, intimate death. But for a final gesture in honor of his beloved Willow, Xander was willing to do what he had to do. 

***

“What do we have to do?”

They were behind what seemed to be a police line of cordoning cop cars. At least three police had demanded to know what civilians were doing in the area, but Alan finally pulled out two badges that said “Mayoral Aide” on them and slipped them over Buffy’s and Spike’s necks. The pictures on the badges didn’t match their faces, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone after a first glance. 

Alan crouched behind the back of a cop car surrounded by gun-wielding police whose attention was aimed at the areas between buildings, where Buffy could see fires spreading, red and gold light flaring in shadows in the darkness. Occasionally a cop would shoot at movement, and further gunshots, sounding louder and more military, came from the area of the fires. This would happen for dizzying seconds, and then everything would die down again, except for the screaming beyond the police cordon. The loud blast of fire alarms could be heard even where they were.

Alan pulled out what seemed to be a hastily printed map of the surrounding blocks, since it was just on printer paper, and Buffy and Spike had to huddle close to him to examine it. Alan didn’t seem much fazed by having a vampire with them, though he did tend to keep Buffy between himself and Spike. “The main shooter is atop the Palm Branch Hotel here,” he said. 

“A hotel?” 

“It was abandoned after the Master rose,” Alan said, “but it’s the tallest building in the area. He’s shooting at any movement in the surrounding blocks, but his main focus are these four buildings, the Elysian Arms apartments. The vampires can’t get into the private apartments, but they set the lobbies on fire, and they’re guarding the front entrance against the fire department.”

“I thought the police and fire departments were curfewed, too,” Spike said. “You brought them out, and they just got killed.”

“I was trying to bring order back to the city. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?” Alan said, looking at Buffy. 

Buffy sighed. “Yes.”

“Did you want me to just let these people be slaughtered? Let the fires rage out of control? There are people’s lives at stake, innocent civilians--” 

“There are no good answers here,” Buffy said, heading off what was going to become a _who gets to die_ debate. Those debates were her life, and she was sick of them. “There’s only what we have to do next, and that’s stop Xander. How many minions does he have?” 

“There seem to be only three guarding the front of the Arms, but they’re armed with semi-automatic rifles, and apparently grenades, and they occasionally walk around the block. We think there’s one more working the hotel with the shooter -- Xander, if you’re correct. They’re unpredictable, and we haven’t been able to get anyone close enough to them to shoot them and survive. Like I said, we shoot them, they just shoot back. They shoot us, and we have to take cover. The main shooter is killing anyone who escapes through the fire exits over here.” He pointed to the back of the apartments. 

“So if we go around the back,” Buffy said, “from this position here, we should be able to break into the hotel and go up the stairs to the roof--”

“You can’t,” Alan said. “We got a report from the SWAT team that tried that. They got through the outside shooters only to find that the stairs are mined.” 

“Mined? How?” 

“Military grade mines. Claymores, said one of the survivors. They’re still in there, bleeding to death. They can’t get out, and we can’t get our EMTs in to get them out.”

“So we need to get onto the roof of the hotel,” Spike said. “Is there a fire escape?” 

“No, there were fire stairs inside. I suspect they’re mined, too.”

“I can… get past mines,” Buffy said slowly. “I think.” 

“Do you even know how they work?” Spike asked.

“Are they motion detected?” 

Alan shook his head. “Trip wires, according to the military liaison. What was that?” Someone was tapping the back of Alan’s shoulder. 

Buffy and Spike pored over the map while Alan was distracted. “If we get in from this side,” Spike said. 

“Xander’s got a clear view from that side,” Buffy said. “There’s no entrance to the hotel there. We’d have to go all the way around to the front, and that’s exactly where Xander is standing and shooting.”

“If there was a way to get up on him from behind,” Spike said. “I don’t like this idea of your sneaking past claymore mines.”

“I’m light on my feet.” 

“And you’ve never lived in a war zone. I’ve lost minions that way. It’s ugly.”

“Well, what do you suggest, I learn to fly?” Buffy snapped. 

“Turns out you may not be needed after all,” Alan said, coming back to them. 

“What’s going on?” 

“The military is sending in some heavier equipment.” 

Spike closed his eyes at a sound Buffy couldn’t hear yet. “It won’t work.” 

“What won’t work?” Buffy asked. Then the sound of the helicopter pounded through the air, searchlights weaving through the darkness. “What are you doing?” Buffy looked up to watch the machine approach. “Do the Sunnydale Police have a helicopter?” 

“The military offered,” Alan said. “They said this was connected to a raid at their facilities this afternoon.”

“So that’s where Xander got his mines and his grenades,” Buffy said. “Does Sunnydale _have_ a military base?” 

“Sunnydale has everything,” Spike said. “The hellmouth draws in convergences. ‘S why I brought Dru here in the first place. But that doesn’t mean this is gonna work.”

“Why not?” Alan asked.

“Trust me, if they can see him, he can see them. He’s got better vision than they do.” 

“If vampires were really the dominant force on this planet, we’d be completely overrun,” Alan said. “We’re not. You’re the minority. Humans are superior.” 

“We’re not the dominant force,” Spike said. “We’re damned vulnerable in daylight. But if we choose to go all out, it would take a bloody missile to stop us.” He looked over at Buffy. “Or a slayer.” 

“We shall see,” Alan said as the helicopter swung closer to the hotel. 

A second later the echoing pops of gunfire pounded louder than the helicopter’s rotor beats. It was brief, a steady wave of gunshots, and then they stopped. “They got him,” Alan said. 

“He got them,” Spike said, staring up. 

“Nonsense.” But the sureness in Alan’s voice faded even as he said it. The helicopter started to veer off course. There was a sudden burst of radio chatter from the police cars as the great flying machine slowly arced through the darkness, swaying wildly as the pilot lost control, probably because he was dead in his seat. The helicopter disappeared from view behind the Elysian Arms, and a second later they heard the crash of twisted metal. 

Buffy stared in the general direction of the crash and then looked at Alan, reproving. “Well?” 

Alan was white with horror. “You’re back in,” he said. “Which way do you want to approach?” 

Buffy considered it. “Through here,” she said, pointing at the Elysian Arms. 

“But that’s right through the vampires.”

“Not from the front, from the side,” Buffy said. “Xander’s got vision of the north and east, the south is blocked by that strip mall. If I come up from the west, I can sneak around to the fire exit on the north side of the hotel.” 

“Where Xander is watching,” Spike said. 

“But not standing at the edge,” Buffy said. “If I’m cuddled right up to the wall, he might not look down. I can get in between these buildings here.” 

“But if any of the minions are patrolling the west, they’ll attack.” 

“Yeah, they will. But I’ll have you to distract them.”

“Oh,” Spike said. “I’m a diversion, am I?” 

“No, they’re the diversion,” Buffy said. She pointed at the police cars around them. “Mayor, can you get them all to fire at my signal, right in front of the Elysian Arms?” 

“And if you get through them to the hotel, you still have to face the claymores,” Spike was saying, but Buffy ignored him. 

“What’s your signal?” Alan asked. 

Buffy grabbed a cop and stole a walkie-talkie from her hip. “Can I borrow this? Thanks.” 

“What--”

“Consultant,” Alan told the cop briefly. “Important mission. So you’ll do what?” 

“Shout I’m going in,” Buffy said. “I should be behind the buildings from the line of fire, but you know, tell them not to shoot us.”

“The vampires are all geared up with military tac jackets and carrying guns. We’re not trying to shoot civilians.” 

“Great. Spike, let’s go.” 

“I don’t like this plan.” 

“Do you have a better one?” 

“No.” 

“Then you’re with me. We’re on the move.” 

Buffy and Spike moved around the outside of the cordon of police. There were ambulances waiting, their lights echoing back at the police lights. The EMTs looked exhausted. They’d already faced one massacre today. 

As another burst of gunfire echoed from the top of the hotel, Spike touched Buffy’s shoulder. She jumped and whirled, her stake at the ready. “Sorry,” he said as she turned. 

“Just stay on the mission,” Buffy snapped, and went back to moving around the buildings. 

“No,” he said behind her, sounding irritated. “I’m sorry.” 

He couldn’t mean that. Vampires didn’t say sorry. “What for?” 

“For not holding Xander when I had the chance. You shouldn’t have to be doing this.” 

“Are you trying to develop a conscience?”

“I’m borrowing yours for a tick,” Spike said. “Seeing how it feels.” 

“It won’t fit.” 

“I’m getting that.” 

“Stay on mission,” she said again. 

Spike fumed, but persisted. “I’m just sorry,” he said. “Sorry you have to face a firing line of semi-automatic weaponry and a stairwell full of mines.”

Buffy didn’t have time for this. “Well, I’m not sorry you do,” she said. “It’s just what’s come up this time. Come on.” 

They were in position. Buffy poked at the walkie-talkie. “How does this thing work?” 

Spike pressed the button around her hand and leaned forward to talk into it. “We’re going in!” he announced. “Fire!” 

Gunshots peppered down the street, and Spike and Buffy ran through the parked cars, trying to stay out of sight of the hotel. At first they thought they were set, but a sudden blast of nearer gunfire made them both dive behind a van. “Shit!” Buffy muttered. “Was that one of ours, or one of theirs?” 

“We’re team demon,” Spike said. “What side is ours or theirs?” 

“Was it one of Xander's, or one of the cops!”

Spike popped his head up over the top of the van and ducked as another burst of gunfire blasted through. They ripped right through both sides of the van, but at least the van provided visual cover. “Definitely a vampire,” Spike said. 

Buffy sneaked under the van, wriggling on her stomach, her tiny body an advantage now. “Keep watch,” she said, her crossbow in her hand. She had a terrible angle, but she saw the minion. He was reloading. She loosed her crossbow. If she’d been at any other angle she’d have hit his heart, but she missed, the bolt embedding itself in his left arm instead. He screamed and threw down the gun. As Buffy wriggled out from under the van to get a better shot, the vampire ripped something off his tac jacket and threw it at her. 

Buffy took one look and did a backflip over the van, her slayer powers on overdrive. Spike stared at her in shock as she landed beside him in a cat stance. “What the fuck was that?”

“Stay down,” Buffy told him, shoving his head to his stomach. She covered her own head and waited. How many seconds delay? 

It couldn’t have been more than five, because one second later the explosion rocked the van. The sound of shrapnel on metal made a screeching sound. Spike yelled. “What the fuck!” and stood up. 

“Spike! Down!” Buffy yelled, but Spike had other ideas. He marched out behind the van, rushing at the minion with the grenades, who pulled another one from his jacket and tossed it at them. Spike caught the damn thing out of the air and threw it back. It landed at the minion’s feet as Spike dove to the side behind another car. Buffy counted, one, two, three, but she was counting fast, and the minion didn’t have time to move out of the way of the grenade. It exploded where it lay, and gobbets of vampire meat shattered and then rained down as dust around them. 

“One down,” Spike grunted, getting up from his space behind the car. Buffy glanced at him, and then stopped. His shirt was torn, his flesh speckled white and red through the shrapnel tears. 

“You’re injured.”

“I’m fine. We gotta get closer.” 

***

Xander heard explosions, and moved over to the other side of the building to see what was what. Whatever was happening was on the other side of the Elysian Arms. What civilians were still alive were trying to move to the north, the south street blocked by the fallen helicopter. Xander shot a few of them, and then heard another burst of fire from the police line to the east. The fires were flaring out of the windows of the second floor of two buildings of the Elysian Arms now. The other two buildings would soon be burning stronger, too, he was sure. His minions were dumb things, but they could cause destruction sure enough. He assumed the explosions were just killing more civilians, and went back to his shooting. 

The screams were heady in his ears. 

***

“Dammit, I hate these things,” Buffy said, rescuing the gun from the ground near the exploded minion. It was damaged, but when she pulled the trigger, sure enough bullets still blasted out of the other end. 

“Don’t waste those!” 

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Buffy shouted. 

“I thought we were approaching from the north?” 

“Fuck it, I’m taking out these minions.” 

“What? I thought you wanted to take out Xander.” 

“Listen,” Buffy said. The screams from the Elysian Arms were getting stronger. The fires had climbed, and those trapped on the top floors were desperate. Buffy indicated a ladder truck with a dead firefighter dangling from a bullet-pocked door. “They’re running out of time.” 

“What’s more important?” Spike asked. 

“I don’t know anymore!” Buffy yelled. “I was told it was killing the vampires, but I want to save these people instead, so shut up!” She held the gun up like she’d seen in some movies as she backed herself against a wall. “It used to be simple. Let the people die, let yourself die, just take out the damned vampire. Well, I hate it, do you hear me? I have to make it so these fires don’t kill _everyone_ in these buildings. I saw enough dead bodies today, and I am _sick_ of feeling guilty!” She peeked around the corner, then stood in full view and fired on someone around the corner. She dodged back around the wall when gunfire came back at her. 

“Did you get him?” 

“Of course I got him!” 

“Is he dust?” 

“Of course he isn’t dust!” Buffy snapped. “Wait for it… wait for it….”

“Got you!” yelled a voice as a bleeding, bullet-riddled minion jumped around the corner with his gun ready. Buffy threw her stake and ducked at the same time, and the vampire got a few shots off before he realized he’d been impaled. He dusted, his gun clattering to the ground. 

“Can you grab that?” Buffy asked, knowing Spike was more impervious to gunfire, and could expose himself a little more. 

“Yeah, give me a tick.” 

“What are you--”

“Give me a tick!” Spike yelled at her. Buffy finally looked at him. A bullet had ripped through his neck. Blood was spurting as he held his hand to it. It would have been completely fatal to a human. He’d have already been lying by her feet, the light fading from his eyes. 

“Spike!” 

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be half starved for blood, but I’ll be fine.” He ripped a long strip from the bottom of his tattered shirt, leaving him with a sexy babydoll T that showed off his midriff between the edges of his coat. Buffy wanted to say something about that, but his midriff was also covered in shrapnel wounds, so she didn’t. He tied the long rag tight around his throat, which probably slowed or stopped the bleeding, took a deep breath, shook his head as if he couldn’t believe he was doing this, dove out into the open street, and snatched Buffy the gun. He didn’t bother running back to her, just threw it at her and dove behind a car as another round of gunfire echoed from down the street. 

“One more!” Spike yelled. 

Buffy checked this gun. It was undamaged, and the clip was almost full. She did a quick assessment. Her hair was coming down from its ponytail. That could get in her eyes. She reset it as she planned her assault, and Spike stared at her with a strange looking smile on his face, as if she were only worrying about fashion. Well, she supposed it did look that way. She grinned back at him over the street, readied the gun, and stood up. “Can you do that again?” 

“Do what?” 

“Run back across the street. Give him something else to shoot at.” 

Spike sighed and made a dive, and as he moved, drawing fire, Buffy turned back to the last minion. She ripped through him with her own gun, aiming for the head. If she could rip out enough brain tissue, he’d be a useless lump of flesh. A bullet grazed her in the arm, another embedded itself in the thick muscle of her thigh, and she kept firing. The minion stopped and wrestled with his gun. He was out of bullets. So was she. She rushed him, rifle up like a club, and got there before he managed to get another clip in. She smashed him in the face, knocking him backward, and then pushed him again, and again, until he fell through the open door of the burning second building of the Elysian Arms. A second later he went up in flames, and a second after that he was ash. 

“Now what?” Spike asked, coming up behind her. Blood was dripping from his neck down the inside of his sleeve, leaving a trail behind him. Buffy assessed her own injuries. The thigh was just a flesh wound, the arm superficial, and her old nearly-healed belly wound was aching, but probably hadn’t ripped open. Spike’s wounds were nasty, but not lethal for a vampire. She would be slow to run, but wouldn’t bleed to death. At least not before she’d done what she had to do. 

“Now we charge the hotel.” 

“No,” Spike said. “You can’t be sure of your step with that leg. You’d get hung up in the trip wires.” 

“Do you have a better idea?” 

“I do.” Spike led her back past the burning buildings to where the abandoned ladder truck sat idling. “We go up that.” 

“Do you know how to work it?” 

“You’d be surprised the shit you learn in a hundred years,” Spike said confidently. 

Buffy shook her head. “Xander will see if we come up alongside the hotel,” she said. “He’d just pick me off the ladder. I’d be a sitting duck.” They couldn’t see the hotel directly from here, but Buffy examined it in the reflection of the unbroken window opposite. Her eye caught on the office building next door. “But I could jump that from next door.” 

“That?” Spike blinked. “What are you?” 

“The slayer.” 

“That’s a full story jump.”

“I can make it.”

“With your leg?” 

“If you can get me atop the office building from the side Xander can’t see, I can make that jump.” 

“You’re sure?” 

Buffy shrugged. “It’s either that or the mined stairs.” 

Spike took her arm and led her to the fire truck. It was out of Xander’s sight behind the buildings. He tossed the corpses out of it and Buffy climbed up the back onto the ladder. Spike had to drive around the block, past the police line, the street full of broken glass, twinkling in the street lights. He drove the truck slowly, and Buffy wondered again if he knew how to operate the thing. But a few moments later he’d sidled up along the office building, and the ladder beneath her began to hum, stretching up to the rooftop. She climbed it, her stake in her waistband. Somehow she’d dropped her crossbow, probably when she was fighting that last minion.

Heights were not what she was trained for, but ignoring any fear was, and she was full of adrenaline and slayer power, or whatever it was that made her feel badass. Buffy creeped her head over the edge of the building. Xander wasn’t visible, but she could hear his gunfire from the other side of the hotel. It looked a higher jump now that she was standing in front of it. “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” she muttered to herself, and took one long look down to the fire truck. Spike was inside the cab, invisible to her. She could do this. 

She mentally blocked the pain in her leg, made a run across the rooftop, and made the jump. 

She didn’t make it. Quite. 

***

Xander hadn’t heard any gunfire in a while, except for from himself. He knew he hadn’t killed _all_ the police, since they were still milling about behind their barricades down the block. This meant his minions had, for some reason, stopped shooting. Either they were out of ammo -- he’d given them less than he’d saved for himself -- or…

Or something had taken them out. 

“Fang!” he shouted down the side of the hotel. 

Fang looked up. He was the only minion Xander had stationed at the hotel, the others guarding the escape and fire routes to the Elysian Arms. “Yeah?” 

Vampire hearing made the orders possible. “Perimeter check!” Xander shouted. 

This was the order to circumnavigate the hotel, make sure no one was sneaking in around them. Xander fired off the last of his current clip into an opposite window that might have shown some movement, and shoved in another one. 

Then he heard a sound at the side of the building. Just a scuff, a scuffle, the sound of movement against concrete, and was that a grunt? He went to investigate. 

It was as if someone had given him a gift. Buffy the vampire slayer was dangling from the side of his hotel, her hands just gripping the top of the wall that circled the rooftop. “You,” he said. 

“Me,” Buffy said, and gathered her body to jump up and face him. 

Xander stopped her, lifting a foot to step on her hand. “You killed Willow,” Xander said down to her. He smashed his rifle butt into her other hand. 

“Ow!” She didn’t pretend it didn’t hurt, but she didn’t let go. “Willow killed herself!” she yelled up at him.

“I was there,” Xander said. “ _You_ killed her.” He squashed her hand under his boot. 

“That’s how the game is played, Xander,” Buffy said. “She kills us, we kill her.” 

“And then I kill you _back_ ,” Xander snarled, and ground his heel into the back of her hand. Any second now she’d slip. He’d see her fall. It would be justice. 

***

Spike was watching nervously from his position at the side of the office building, staring up at the slayer while she dangled like a worm on a hook, hanging from the side of the building. He could do _nothing_ to help her, and the idea made his mouth go dry. Or was that the blood loss? He didn’t know, and he couldn’t know, and he wanted to shout up at her, but that would just distract her, and he didn’t know what to do, until another burst of gunfire told him that what he was _supposed_ to do was die. He looked down as the bullets ripped through his torso, blasting out the back of his coat, to see one more minion -- shit, Xander _had_ had four -- shooting at him.

Spike was more annoyed than anything else. He shoved forward through the pain, ripped the gun out of the minion’s hand, and shot him point blank in the back of the neck. The minion’s spine severed beneath the gunshot and he dusted under Spike’s feet. 

Now Spike knew what to do. He sighted up to where Xander was pounding on Buffy’s gripping hands, aimed for Xander’s head, and pulled the trigger. 

There was only one bullet left, but it hit its mark. 

***

Red splatters exploded from the side of Xander’s face, and he abandoned Buffy to grab at his left eye. The bullet had gone right through it, blasting out part of his skull, clearly disorienting him. Buffy gathered her strength and pulled herself up to the rooftop. She picked up Xander’s gun and threw it over the side of the building. “That’s it, Xander,” she said. “It’s over.” She pulled the stake from her waist band. “You didn’t have to do this.” She advanced. “You could have just left town.” 

Xander backed away, his legs wobbly, staggering and falling. “I couldn’t.” 

“You didn’t need to play Master,” Buffy said. “You could have just up and run, one more fledgeling in a world of them. I wouldn’t have even bothered with you. What was so important you needed to slaughter the town for?” 

“Willow was my best friend!” he yelled. He was crab walking backward now, heading for his bag. Buffy glanced behind him, eyeing it. “She was the Bonnie to my Clyde, the yin to my yang! We’d been together forever!” 

“You’re just a fledgeling! You’d been together what, a year?”

“Forever!” Xander said. “I loved her since Kindergarten! We shared crayons, and slept over, and watched Charlie Brown Christmas, it was _real_.”

“That was when you were human,” Buffy said. “None of that mattered to her. She ripped those crayon memories right out of her skull. Friendship didn’t matter. _You_ didn’t matter. You were just another minion to her.” 

“You don’t know that!”

“I was in her head as much as she was in mine,” Buffy snapped. “You were just a tool.”

“So what if I was?” Xander said, but the words were accompanied by a wince. “I loved her. Love doesn’t need to be equal. It’s love.” 

“Can a vampire even love?” Buffy asked, really wanting to know. “Isn’t it all violence and blood and ownership? Do you even love like a human?” 

Xander stared at her seriously out of his single eye. “It feels the same to me,” he said. He dove for his bag. 

Buffy threw her stake, and missed. It bounced off Xander’s vest. Her hands were broken, and she hadn’t taken that into account. Shit. Maybe she’d have to do this the hard way after all. 

She grabbed him and dragged him away from his bag, but it was too late. He’d already found what he’d been aiming for. Another grenade. He pulled the pin and stared at her. “I’ll take you with me.” 

Buffy shook her head and kicked him, hard. He went flying. Five seconds. Two for Xander’s declaration, another two for the kick, and one second after the impact, Xander exploded in midair. Some of the smaller pieces of shrapnel embedded themselves in Buffy’s face, but Xander himself fell as dusty rain down the five stories of the hotel to the ground below. 

Buffy let herself go to her knees. There were no more gunshots. The distant fire alarms blared into the night, and the glow from the fires made the light eerie and surreal. She looked down and found she still had the walkie-talkie clipped to her hip pocket. 

She pulled it up and started pressing buttons. When she found the one she thought she needed she announced into it, “Vampires are dusty. The shooters are down. The firefighters can come in now.” She heard an unintelligible burst of noise from the thing when she pressed another button, and quickly let it go, but she thought they’d probably heard her. 

She gazed about her. How the fuck was she supposed to get down from the roof? The stairs were still mined, it would take a bomb expert to get her out of here. 

A hum and a clank told her the fire truck had moved. The ladder had gone from the office building next door to the top of the hotel. Buffy smiled, exhausted, but glad. She picked up her fallen stake, just in case there was another minion she hadn’t anticipated, and then limped over to the wall. She crept over onto the ladder, and half-fell, half-slid down to the fire truck. 

Spike jumped out of the cab as she fell off the back of the truck. He looked worse for the wear, fresh gunshots glaring out of his torso, blood trickling off him, but he wasn’t dust. Buffy was injured, bleeding, exhausted, and so, so glad to see him she could almost cry. 

“I did it!” she yelled. “We did it! Xander’s gone!” 

She limped toward him, planning to take him in a hug, but Spike’s face suddenly changed. The blue eyes she’d come to love so much shifted to yellow, and the fine brow wrinkled into darkness. Fangs glinted in his mouth as he smiled. 

“Means the geas is off.”


	34. Hunted

Spike’s every sense was on the alert. He was short on blood, already feeling the ache in his belly that told him to replenish it. The wound in his neck made turning his head difficult, and the bullets that had ripped through him made every movement hurt like the devil, but Buffy didn’t look much better. Her arm seeped blood through her jacket, her thigh was soaked with it and still bleeding, and there were fresh shrapnel wounds on her face, which were trickling blood down her cheeks and forehead. One cut on or near her eyebrow made it look as if she were weeping blood. She held her hands stiffly, and there were scrapes and bruises on them from Xander’s attack. Her eyes were haunted, the light in them dying as Spike grinned at her through his fangs. 

Her hair was perfect. 

Spike’s jaw clenched, twitching as he forced himself to advance. They’d gone over this and over this and over this. Dozens of times, different ways, different intensities, he’d whispered how he’d kill her into her ear while driving the truth of his promise home with his cock. Sometimes she’d play that she killed him, too, but the important part was that she heard how he wanted her, that he wanted to eat her, to bite her, to break her, to kill her. That was what she begged for at her most vulnerable. And that was what Spike was going to give her. 

He couldn’t not do it. And he couldn’t wait, either. The idea of _waiting_ and then turning on her turned his own stomach, and made him itch for a bottle to drive the feeling out of his head. No, he had to attack her here, now, before they had time to recover or think, because if they didn’t it would just break down. How could they handle a mere break-up after all they’d shared? It was impossible. Never again. Drusilla might think it was a game she could play with their hearts, that they could break their relationship and still be “friends,” but Spike knew better. He’d rather kill her. He’d rather die than go through the agony of not-being-together-anymore. Drusilla’s betrayal was too fresh, too raw, and he knew he was too weak to face it again. Not from the slayer. Not from his liege. 

She wanted him to kill her. That was exactly what he was going to do. 

The hope died horribly in her face as he advanced, and she was so cute hurting, it was like being shot again. “You want to do this here? Now?” she asked, shifting her stake in her hand. She held it awkwardly, and Spike knew her hands were injured, more than just bruised. “What happened to blaze of glory, Spike? What happened to _sorry you have to go through all this_?” 

Spike was still advancing, but slowly. “You weren’t sorry,” he said. “You’re the slayer. We had a truce until the geas was off.” He opened his mouth and hissed a little. “And now I’m hungry.” 

He half hoped she’d just throw her stake and end it right there. He knew she could throw stakes and kill, throw knives into wooden posts, he knew her skills. But not with the way she was holding her hands, and not with the way she was standing. She let him move within striking distance, and then struck, though not with the stake hand, and not with her fist, either. She’d shifted to a catlike palm strike, hitting him with the heel of her hand. It was powerful, but not quite as painful as the blunt end of a fist. Xander had definitely injured her. 

Spike struck too, punching without holding back, aiming for her jaw so he could knock her out, but she blocked the strike and shoved him with her hip, swinging him sideways until he struck the side of the fire truck. Red and blue lights flared around them as further emergency vehicles swarmed down the streets, EMTs and fire trucks and police and police and police, half of them starting to blast little sirens again, all of them carrying loudly shouting people. Some of the civilians who saw them started to cheer. 

Buffy’s eyes grew wide at the cheers, and she grabbed Spike by the wrist and threw him to the pavement. She kicked him while he was down, and he felt blood ooze out of the holes in his back, but he grabbed her leg and dragged at her. She yelled, the pain twisting her. He threw her over him until she landed on her back, and her wounded hands dropped her stake. It clattered across the pavement to roll under the ladder truck. 

They both knew what that meant. She’d move for the stake, and Spike would have her then, or at least get close to having her. Spike was injured, and he couldn’t ignore that. The fact that feeling ravenous just made him want to kill her more in his gut didn’t make killing something like the slayer _easy_. Particularly not _this_ slayer. 

He could almost count it down in her eyes. Three, two, one, and she’d go for the stake. Three, her eyes darted around, reading the area in front and around him. Two, her body tensed, ready to dive for the fallen weapon. One, she’d go for it--

But she didn’t. Buffy the vampire slayer turned tail and ran. “Try to catch me, Spike!” she shouted over her shoulder. “Bet you fucking can’t!” 

Spike was so startled he actually just stared after her for a few seconds. What was she doing? Was she _running?_ But then the purely demonic thrill of the chase rose up in the back of his mind like a fountain of dark joy, and he whooped with laughter. “I’ll catch you, slayer,” he said, more to himself than to her, since she had a pretty good head start on him by now. “Don’t you think I won’t.” 

He tensed against his bullet wounds and fled after her. 

***

Buffy ran, silently cursing the bullet which she thought was still in her thigh. It hadn’t gone out the other side, anyway, and she was pretty attuned to her body. She could almost _feel_ it inside there, being pushed around by her flesh as she ran. 

And run she did. She had to get Spike the fuck away from the gun-happy police, the bleeding survivors, the desperate EMTs. She had no desire to get caught up in another firefight, and she had no interest whatsoever in figuring out what to do if Spike took it into his now geas-less brain to take a hostage on her. The question of _do you allow the victim to die to get to the vampire_ was not a question she ever wanted to have to ask again, and she really, _really_ didn’t want to ask it regarding Spike. 

Maybe she could talk to him? He wasn’t unreasonable. The vampire had emotions, she’d seen them, she’d held him through them. But maybe that didn’t matter when he was half-starved with sudden blood loss and a slayer was bleeding next to him and he no longer had a geas spell holding his actions in check. 

So the first step was just to get away from the scene of this dumb fight. There were civilians to the right of her, burning buildings before her, police and emergency vehicles coming up behind her, and a crashed helicopter to the left. She went left. If there had been anyone still alive there, they were long gone. The helicopter had caught on fire, and was burning with thick, black smoke billowing from the blaze. Buffy ran to it and darted behind it, pausing by the crumpled tail rotor to make sure Spike was following her. 

He was. He wasn’t running, but he hadn’t stopped moving, looking neither to the right nor left, his eyes fixed on her. She ran behind the helicopter but stayed in the middle of the street, staying visible, staying followable. _Just get him away from the unprotected civilians,_ she thought. _Just get him to follow me._

He did follow her, relentlessly, down block after block. Sometimes Buffy would try to sprint to make up some distance, but her leg fazed her often, and she was panting for air. Spike just kept walking. They were far enough away from the crowds now, she could change tactics. She needed a stake. Or any weapon, really. Where could she get a weapon? 

She was in a business part of Sunnydale, with closed office buildings on either side. If she’d seen so much as a tree or even a wooden door, she’d have broken off a splinter or something, and then she’d be armed again, but everything was glass and metal and concrete, completely useless for killing a vampire. What would she do now? 

The dark hulk of a parking garage loomed before her. The entrance was on the other side of the block, but it didn’t have glass windows, just open walls. It just took a bit of a jump to get her over the rail and into the lower level, her feet echoing on the concrete. Most of the cars were gone for the night, just the occasional vehicle perched here and there, standing alone between their painted yellow lines. 

“You can’t hide from me that way, slayer!” Spike called out from behind her. Shit, he was closer than she’d thought. The parking pavilion went two directions, up and down. Buffy chose up. The basements and sewers were vampire territory in Sunnydale. 

She ran up the incline of the garage to the stairwell on the side, throwing open the doors and up the stairs, but she realized in the light on the stairwell that she was leaving a blood trail. Spike would be able to track her for… pretty much ever, at this rate. She climbed three levels and then took off at the fourth, leaving two more to climb. 

She headed back up the incline, even fewer cars this high up, listening to the echoes of her footsteps. But there were more echoes. Boots. She looked behind her, expecting to see Spike coming up the incline, but the footsteps were coming from above. She whirled. Spike had eschewed the stairs and seemed to have climbed directly up the gap in the center of the garage, swinging like a monkey from one level to the next until he was ahead of her. 

“You seem to be recovering, Spike,” Buffy said. “You feeling better after all your gunshots?” 

“I’m just hungry,” Spike said. “And your blood smells delectable. There’s nothing like a broken and wounded slayer to quench your thirst.” 

“Wounded, yes,” Buffy said. “Broken, no.” She let him get closer, since he had the high ground, and her leg hurt like hell. She favored it openly, weaving and swaying, her weight only on one foot.

“Oh, I think you are,” Spike said. “Or you very soon will be.” He reached out to punch her, but Buffy lifted the leg she’d been favoring and kicked him hard, tossing him into an SUV. The window shattered under his impact, and Buffy followed him, punching his wounded torso with her crushed hands, getting his blood all over her palms. He grunted and endured the onslaught for a few moments, then shoved her back so she rolled down the incline. She rolled and rolled, keeping her aim controlled, until she hit the side of the pavilion and struck against the outer wall. Buffy had a few precious seconds. She slipped herself over the wall and hung, grunting at the pain from her broken hands -- she wished she knew which bones, so she could at least try and set them, but they all hurt so much it was hard to assess -- until she could swing herself into the lower level and roll into a safe landing there. 

She backed up, her eye on the window, waiting for Spike to follow her, but he didn’t. She had another few precious moments to try and recuperate, or at least assess her own damage. She was tiring. She was not prepared for this fight, and she didn’t have a stake. Wasn’t that what Spike kept impressing on her in his damned sexy mock fights they’d blocked out? The slayer must always reach for her weapon. She wasn’t going to find any wood in this parking pavilion. She had to get out of there. 

She headed back for the stairs, but before she could get there, she heard a screeching squeal from the upper level. Something was coming down the parking garage. Someone had started their car and was haring down the pavilion, squealing their tires on the turns. She supposed it was _possible_ that some innocent civilian had just decided to claim their car in the middle of the night in the midst of a curfew with a mass shooter not four blocks away. It was _possible_. 

As Spike would have said, it wasn’t bloody likely. She dove to the side of the wall as the SUV came screaming around the curve, and she quickly backed away as Spike realized he’d missed her, and swirled the car at the turn to come back at her. Of course the bastard would know how to hotwire a car. Fucking hell. Buffy told her leg to behave and _ran_ towards the stairs, the SUV barreling up behind her to turn her into slayer ketchup against the wall of the garage. 

She made it to the stairs with the car just on her heels, and jumped down the first flight as if she were flying. The car crashed violently into the concrete behind her, but that meant Spike couldn’t get the door open. He’d have to go up or down a level to get into the stairwell. She had another couple of minutes before he was on her again. 

She had to get out of this death trap. She pelted down the stairs, skipping most of them, dancing around the corners as if she had springs on her feet, until she made it back to the ground level. She bounced her way out of another garage window, and found herself next to a bike rack. There was one bike there, abandoned by its owner, still locked tight, but the seat was spotted with dust. Buffy took hold of the lock and wrenched. She expected it to pop under her strength, but her strength had been greatly diminished. She needed to get her leg up onto the rack and tear at the lock with her whole weight before the lock finally snapped under her slayer strength, and she found herself the proud owner of a newly stolen bicycle. 

She felt a little foolish hopping on the thing and pedaling away, but she needed to get somewhere where she could find wood and bandages and maybe even a place to rest for half an hour, and she wasn’t going to find it here in the business district. She pedaled down the street towards the more residential neighborhoods, not unaware of the blood trail her leg wound was leaving, but unable to do anything about it at present. She could escape Spike for a while. 

She knew she couldn’t hide for long. 

***

Spike was starting to hate the woman. Why’d she have to be so ingenious and clever and beautiful and brilliant and perfect and fucking hard to kill? He climbed his way out of the totaled SUV, tearing the airbag out of his face, and pounded at the door to the stairwell, but it was held fast by the car. At his best, Spike would just roll the car off and continue the chase, but he was not at his best. He was short of blood and full of bullet holes, and his poor duster had suffered gunshots. 

He spared himself a moment to take it off and examine the damage. It was extensive. At least five shots had gone right through him, right through it, leaving holes he could waggle his thumb through. He supposed he could patch the leather, but it would never be the same again. Maybe he could take the holes as a trophy of this kill. His first slayer had left him with a scar he continually recut whenever it started to fade, keeping it looking as fresh as if it had been made only months ago. His second slayer had left him this coat. This fight with Buffy was going to leave him scarred in ways he knew he couldn’t bear to process right now. So he didn’t. He sniffed over his coat and slipped it back on, fighting back emotion he didn’t want to have.

Vampire and slayer. Vampire kills slayer, sucks her dry, and breaks her bones to lick out the marrow. That was what was supposed to happen. He could do that. He must do that. Or he wouldn’t be what Buffy wanted him to be. And he would become whatever Buffy wanted him to be. 

_Stop thinking so hard_ , he reminded himself. _If you think too much you’ll just start to cry again, and then what use would you be to her?_ He sniffled, banishing emotion, but caught a whiff of slayer’s blood, too. Oh. Well, that would be easy. She was leaving a blood trail. He could follow that. 

Spike made it to the ground floor and found where Buffy had slipped back out of the parking pavilion into the night. He even found the broken bike lock left abandoned on the ground. “Oh, slayer,” he whispered, aware she was too far away to hear. “That’s cheating, that is, slayer. But that’s all right. I don’t give up when I’ve scented my prey.” He took a deep breath and tossed himself into his light stalking trance, where he could scent anyone and anything he had in his nose. 

The blood trail was thinner now that she was on a bike, but she still dripped. He slowed his pace. No point in going fast now, and he was injured, even if he played he wasn’t. He could find her. All he had to do was follow the blood crumbs. 

***

Buffy’s trusty steed was not so trusty. The bike hadn’t been maintained in a long while, and the chain was slow, and needed oil. The pedaling action was hard on her wounded thigh, and she was starting to feel woozy. She’d had some idea in her head to bike to Giles’s, but she knew she couldn’t get there in the state she was in. She closed her eyes for a second turning a corner, and lost control. The old brakes failed on the wheels, her injured hands unable to hold them taut, and the bike tipped over, leaving her skidding along the pavement. She kept her head up, hoping against hope she wasn’t about to give herself a concussion on top of everything else. 

She impacted on her elbow instead, the world spinning, and finally landed on her back, her legs tangled in the bicycle. Her elbow hurt, and her shoulders ached, and she finally let her head lay back on the concrete with a tock. For a brief moment she thought, _I’ll just lie here for a minute. I don’t need to get up yet. I could just stay here. A car could come and hit me and that would solve everything._

But she didn’t actually want a car to hit her, and she figured she really needed to get up and take care of this bleeding. It took her a long time to come to this decision. The sound of a nearby train echoed in her head, and she listened to it pass behind the houses. She hoped the wooziness was just exhaustion and not actually blood loss. Exhaustion she could fix. Blood loss, that would take more time. 

She finally sat up and disentangled her legs from the bicycle. The wheel was bent. Her steed had foundered. “Bang,” she said quietly, mentally shooting it in the head, and examined her elbow. The rough pavement had ripped through the denim, scoring her elbow with a nasty scrape. She tested it, but apart from the scrape and subsequent bruise, it could move okay. She wasn’t broken. But she’d left more blood on the street. Fuck, she already knew she’d been leaving droplets of blood the whole way. Spike might not find her immediately, but he would find her. 

Unless he just gave up? He could do what he wanted now. Why would he want to kill her? 

She knew this was fantasy. Spike didn’t give up any more than she did. If he did, he wouldn’t be the creature she…. 

Fuck this. She needed to bandage her gunshots, and now her elbow, too. And her hands were starting to swell. She was in a quiet, residential neighborhood, the houses smaller and poorer than around Revello Drive. If she broke into one of these houses, she’d be safe long enough to treat her wounds. She hated to bother a civilian, but this _was_ an emergency. 

A little one storey bungalow across the street had a sweetly tended garden with California winter flowers and some decorative trees. It wasn’t tightly manicured, but allowed to grow a bit, cultivated, but natural. A statuette of St. Francis of Assisi was tucked into a pride of place, holding a tiny cup for his concrete sparrow to drink from, a lamb nestled at the foot of his robes, a cross around his neck. That would discourage a vampire. 

Buffy tossed the bike behind another house’s fence and limped over to the bungalow. The front door was locked, but the windows were low to the ground, and there was one in the living room that didn’t look like it was closed properly. Buffy lifted it and heard a latch break. The bungalow was old, and the wood was warped. “Thanks,” she whispered behind her to St. Francis, and slipped in the window. She didn’t want to wake the inhabitants. She’d get in, clean and bandage her leg, get some water, and get out again. 

She tiptoed as quietly as she could past the bedroom and into the bathroom, where she closed the door and turned on the light. The image in the mirror blinked back at her. She looked an absolute mess, young and blooded, with deep circles beneath her eyes. She’d been fighting since she woke up that morning. She slipped off her jacket and peered down at her left arm. The graze from the gunshot had clotted and dried, but the elbow was fresh and raw. She could tell her thigh wound was still bleeding. She was about to take her jeans off and wrap a towel around the wound when the door behind her opened wide. Someone shouted at her in Spanish, brandishing a cross and holding a fire poker. Well, it had been foolish to expect anyone in Sunnydale to be a sound sleeper.

“Hey, cool it, not a vampire!” Buffy shouted, holding up both hands. “Not a vampire, not a robber, I’m sorry!” 

An older couple looked back at her, the man’s hair grey, the woman’s dark, shot with silver. “What are you doing here?” The man switched to English with the trace of an accent. 

“I was being hunted by a vampire,” Buffy told them honestly. “There was a shooting tonight downtown, I got caught up in it. I can’t go to the hospital, he’ll just follow me there. I needed a private home to get cleaned up in.” 

“We did hear on the news.” The woman stepped forward, holding up the cross she wore around her neck. “You are on the run from the devils?” She had no accent at all. 

“Just one devil,” Buffy said, and she reached out to touch the cross with one finger, proving it wouldn’t burn her. “But I need….” She gestured helplessly down at her blood-soaked self. 

“Let me help you,” the woman said. She lifted Buffy’s arm and examined her wounds. “ _Cielo,_ get the girl some ice tea or something. I’ll need to look at that leg.” 

“I’m Buffy,” Buffy said. 

“Manuel Hernandez, this is Gabriella,” the man said. “Gaby, are you sure? We could call someone else.” 

“God has sent her into our care, _cielo_ ,” Gabriella said. “If _our_ children were in this state, God willing he would provide for them. Sit down, Buffy. I will help you.” 

Buffy sat on the toilet and quietly thanked a god she had plenty of reasons not to believe in for Gabriella and her husband. The woman helped Buffy off with her jeans, cleaned the gunshot, and made a neat bandage for her out of a menstrual pad and some medical tape. There was nothing they could do about the bullet -- it would take a doctor to decide whether or not it needed to come out -- but it felt a lot better wrapped up. While Gabriella worked she talked about her son and daughter, both living in LA these days, but they came up regularly, and Buffy reminded her of her daughter, and wasn’t it a terrible day, but God willing all would be better tomorrow. Buffy rested her head and let the woman talk. Her jeans were soaked in blood, but Gabriella provided her with a replacement in the form of some of her own gardening overalls, which were a little big on Buffy, but at least weren’t advertising “vampire food!” in large red letters in the air around her. 

The injuries on her elbow and forearm were more easily patched up with big bandaids. Once she’d tended the bigger injuries, Gabriella attended to Buffy’s face, using her tweezers to pluck out any obvious pieces of shrapnel, cleaning the blood away, gently murmuring little bits of nonsense about her family, and her work -- she was apparently a retired nanny who still did babysitting on occasion. 

When Gabriella led Buffy out of the bathroom, she found that Manuel had been busy making coffee and preparing a plate of quesadillas. “Oh, you don’t have to do this,” Buffy said. 

“You’re a guest,” Manuel said, despite his earlier doubts. “Eat well, and may God protect you.” 

Buffy asked for a bowl of ice water for her hands, and Manuel pulled out some ibuprofen for her to help with pain and swelling. They gave her water and asked if they could call anyone. Buffy thought about calling Giles or Oz, but the idea of Spike targeting them hurt. He knew them all too well. If he’d turned on her, he’d turn on them. But maybe if he killed her he’d forget about them. Which meant keeping them out of this. 

“She should stay here tonight,” Gabriella said. 

“I can’t do that.” 

“You should,” Manuel said. “You should stay until sunlight. You’ll be safe here.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Buffy said, but she was exhausted. 

“Sleep on the couch, we’ll get you a coverlet.” 

“I can’t,” Buffy said. “He’ll find me here. But if you could find me a wooden spoon or a broom handle or something so I could make a wooden stake? Don’t go outside, it’s not worth that, but something?”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Manuel said. He went down into the basement and came up with several wooden dowels. They had been decoratively turned. “I have a chair I was going to repair.” 

“I have to shape these,” Buffy said. “Do you have a sharp knife?” 

“Sit on the couch while Manuel does it,” Gabriella said. “Try to rest.”

Buffy was too tired to protest. She sat herself on the couch while Manuel scraped the edges of the dowels, and Gabriella tucked a blanket around her. She closed her eyes. She meant to just try and meditate. She meant to stay awake. 

She meant to. 

She’d grown used to human kindness. There was a time she wouldn’t have slept in a stranger’s house, wouldn’t have dared trust another. The peace and the exhaustion overcame her. It was a hand on her shoulder that woke her. “Buffy,” Gabriella whispered. “Someone calls you.” 

Buffy started awake. On the coffee table before her lay four sharp, beautifully carved chair stakes, but the clock on the wall said hours had passed, and Manuel and Gabriella looked frightened. “You should have woken me,” Buffy said as she surged to her feet. She wobbled. Okay, don’t get up so fast. She had definitely lost too much blood. She pressed a stake into each of her hosts’ hands, shoved one in the pocket of her overalls, and gripped the other in her swollen fist. “Did he find me?” 

“There is someone outside calling your name,” Gabriella said. “Does the devil know you?” 

“It’s complicated,” Buffy said. “Yes, he knows me.” She went to the window and looked out. 

There was Spike, standing like a shadow under the streetlight outside, right where the smear of her blood from her fall had stained the concrete. She couldn’t see it from here, but she knew where she’d fallen. 

“Buffy!” Spike shouted. “I know you’re in there, pet. You don’t come out, I’ll chop your new friends into messes.” 

Buffy didn’t answer back. She was thinking. 

“Think Xander’s the only one who can set fires, love? A few little crosses don’t scare me.” 

“I have to go out,” Buffy told her hosts. “I have to draw him away from you.” 

“But he’ll kill you,” Manuel said. 

“It doesn’t matter about me. You’re the important ones here.” 

“No,” Gabriella said. “We can wait. We would be safe here. The sunlight will drive him off.” 

“I have to do it,” Buffy said. “I can’t risk him carrying out his threat, or even bothering remembering about you, which he will if I make him wait all night. Thank you so much for all you’ve done.” 

“Buffy,” Manuel said, as if he were going to protest more. He stopped. “God protect you.”

“Keep the stakes on you. You _can_ kill them. Stay away from the windows and doors. Don’t go outside.” 

“We know,” Gabriella said.

“Thank you so much,” Buffy said. She knew she could never repay their kindness. She probably wouldn’t survive the night. “I’ll lead him away. Stand back.” 

She went to the front door and opened it. “All right, Spike,” she said. “I’m here. We finish this.” 


	35. Finished

It hurt Spike’s heart to see Buffy stride out into the night, patched up and respectable again. It was one thing to murder a half broken creature who was two steps away from death already. It was another to take her away from the world when she was clearly reasserting her place in it. 

Spike himself was exhausted. The bleeding from his neck wound had finally stopped, but the gunshots in his torso ached, and his stomach was clawing him with hunger. He _needed_ blood. He knew where he needed to get it. 

Something about focusing on Buffy’s scent, on the blood trail she left behind, had made him ravenous for Buffy in particular. He’d walked and walked and walked -- Buffy had to have gone miles on that wretched bike. He couldn’t steal a car, because he needed to follow the scent. He’d thought about finding his own bike, but in a vampire town most people kept everything even remotely valuable inside. They’d all learned, vampires had no compunctions about murder, they weren’t about to let a little thing like stealing bother them. 

So he’d just followed her. Slowly, inexorably, doggedly, he’d followed the blood scent, and now here she was looking cool and calm, ready to face him, with a stake in her hand and determination in her eyes. Spike still had his fangs out. “Let’s do this,” he said. 

Buffy still limped, and her hands still didn’t grip the stake as surely as she ordinarily would have. He was probably safe from a thrown projectile. Fuck, what did it matter if he wasn’t? Spike was so damned tired suddenly he wanted to just have her kill him. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted the final fight. He had to create it, out of blood and pain and determination, if nothing else. 

She strode into the street, and the two started circling each other. “You look a little ragged, Spike,” she said. “Did you have a long walk?”

He didn’t have a good retort. Or any patience for banter. The walk and the blood loss and the pain and the hunger had reduced him to something monstrous, and all he could do was hiss. Buffy seemed surprised at his animalistic response. Spike rushed her, unable to hold back any longer, and she punched out, trying to hit him in the bullet holes. She still held her fist in that half closed, leopard style, to spare impact on her knuckles. She kicked him and circled further away, dancing down the street even with her limp, still facing him, calling him to follow, but backing away nevertheless. 

He wasn’t as animal as his reactions would indicate. He knew her. Knew she was leading him away from whoever it was who had helped her. But they didn’t matter, only the fight did. Only Buffy mattered now. 

They waltzed down the street, touching, running, punching, dodging. Buffy used parked cars and shrubs and fences to draw him farther and farther away. She was slower than usual, but she was clever, and Spike kept having to think fast to guard her attacks. He attacked her hands, mostly, trying to get that stake out of her grip, but he’d tipped his hand in all their whispered lovemaking, and she knew that tactic. She made it down the block, around a corner, and Spike found she’d led him to a train yard.

How picturesque. 

He lost track of her as she darted amongst detached cars and stacked containers. “Don’t start this again, Buffy,” Spike called out. “You know I can track you anywhere.” 

“I know the dog has the scent now,” Buffy said from the darkness. “But who’s holding his leash? Is it Drusilla? Or is it something more basic?” 

Spike turned as Buffy’s voice came from above him. She’d jumped to an empty flatcar, the container removed, so it was just the wheels on the rails. “Where’s William now, Spike? Is there any poetry in this?” 

“There is always poetry in death,” Spike said, jumping up with her. “Your death will be like a perfect ending couplet.” 

“A couplet, eh?” Buffy asked. “What’s it rhyme with?” 

“Your death, your last breath,” Spike said. 

“Lame.” She’d actually rolled her eyes.

Was she _trying_ to get his back up? Most assuredly. And it was working, too, as whatever part of him still clung to humanity suddenly hissed as loudly as his demon side, and he rushed her again. He made a flying kick with a roar of frustration, and Buffy knocked him aside by the knee, rolling him off the flatcar, but Spike grabbed her ankle at the last second and dragged her beside him. They landed in the gravel, Buffy half on top of him, and Spike found himself in a wrestling match, trying to keep that stake from entering his heart. He forced it flat against her breasts while she tried like anything to force it out against his. With a grunt he flung her over his head, and then made himself get up to face her on his feet. 

He wobbled standing. He’d had stars at the edges of his vision for the last half of his walk, as the lights around him splintered in his blurred sight. Buffy had to have seen that wobble, and it scared him. What if he didn’t manage to kill her? What if he failed? What would that do to her? Who else would get to hold that perfect death between their hands, steal her from the world, as it was Spike’s right and duty to do? 

He had to find words to tame her down, lower her guard, get close enough to kill her. “You’re the poetry here,” he said. “Every move your art, every breath your cadence, every strike the alliteration.” 

“You trying to win with pretty words?” Buffy said. “Maybe you should just get to the _point_!” She made a lunge with the stake, and he managed to weave out of the way. 

“Obvious, love.”

“I’ve had a rough night,” Buffy confessed. She twisted and kicked him, but he grabbed her foot and shoved her back. A low sound they’d both been ignoring grew louder as they fought, and a bright light passed across the railyard. A train was clacking down one of the tracks, a heavy, triple-engined freight train. They both glanced its way, both saw an opportunity, and both had the same idea. The fight shifted. Their feet crunched in the gravel as they moved into the way of the oncoming train. 

“You think you could survive that?” Buffy asked. 

“Sure as hell you can’t.”

“Gonna get a little crush on me, Spike?” Buffy taunted. 

“You were the one with the crush,” Spike said. “I just wanted to get through my unlife. You’re the one made it complicated.”

A sudden whistle pierced the night as the engineer saw them in the train’s lights and tried to warn them out of the way. Neither were listening. It was a game of chicken, which of them was more likely to get out of the way in time. Spike made another lunge, and Buffy kicked him down the tracks. He wanted to execute some hot maneuver which would look great and get the slayer closer to the danger zone, but all he had it in him to do was stagger back in her direction. Buffy hit him in the face. 

The train was almost upon them. Spike grabbed her by the back of the neck and threw her to the rails. He meant to stomp on her, holding her there, and maybe dying with her as the damn train struck them both, but Buffy’s foot came up and nailed him in the spuds. He groaned and toppled off the tracks, his coat flying. The train whooshed past.

He expected the smell of blood and the squish as the behemoth crushed the slayer. Instead he turned to see her body landing from a flip on the other side of the tracks, catching glimpses of her between the wheels and the cars as the train barrelled on now between them. 

Bugger. She’d survived it. They’d both fucking survived it. 

Now what? They stood on either side of the tracks, the train going too quickly to get over, too dangerous to grab hold of and climb, and they were both too injured to jump the damn thing. Spike looked to the back, but it looked miles long, and a screeching told him that the thing was slowing. It could take an hour to stop a train this long, and he hadn’t the fucking patience for it. 

Buffy’s face, what glimpses of it he could see between the cars, was hard and businesslike. He had to get this sorted. He had to end this one way or another. “You think you can get away that easy?” Spike shouted over the noise of the train. 

“Easy is as easy does,” Buffy shouted back. “Of the two of us, I think we know which one’s easy.” 

“I’ll kill ‘em, slayer,” he yelled at her, desperate. It was a cheap threat, as in the state he was in even Anyanka could probably dust him, let alone if there were more of the Squad there, but Buffy didn’t know that. Or she couldn’t be sure of that, anyway. “I’m going back to Revello Drive and I’ll kill the whole lot of ‘em. Wesley and Anyanka, I’ll kill ‘em in their sleep. I’ll wait in the hall for Giles and the boys to come by in the morning, and suck ‘em dry. I’ll crunch their bones and rip out their guts and feed them to the raven. I can do it, too. You been reading Wes’s files? They’re a laugh a minute, aren’t they? What do you think I could do to them all, slayer mine?”

“Then we end this first,” Buffy shouted back at him. “The park, three blocks from the house. The one with the swing sets.”

“And the climbing frame,” Spike said. “If it’s not in time before sunrise, I’ll meet you at the house. And you _know_ who else I’ll be killing there.” He turned and slunk into the darkness, hoping she would actually meet him. He was too damned tired to come up with another plan. 

***

Buffy was the one who had to make the detour down around the railyard to the overpass. She realized she could have just told Spike to meet her there, where the road went over the train tracks, but her wits weren’t at their sharpest. The pain had become a kind of background noise as she fought with her endurance, but that also seemed to put the rest of her brain into a fog. 

She was almost at the overpass when she realized she needed to warn the house. Hell, maybe she could even get some help. Now that the others were already threatened, she didn’t feel so odd about it. She checked the pocket of her bloodstained jacket. She did still have her cell phone, but the batteries were almost dead. She managed to call Revello Drive, but no one answered. She kicked herself for not installing an answering machine, and tried to call twice more, but no one picked up. Busy day? Wes and Anyanka exhausted and in bed? Something didn’t seem right. They would have been watching the news to see whether or not she’d won against Xander, wouldn’t they? 

Buffy looked at the time as she checked the battery on the cell phone. An hour to sunrise, maybe? Half an hour at least to get near Revello Drive with her leg. Was Spike going to be any faster than her? He didn’t have to take the detour, but he was pretty injured, too, and he’d walked farther than she had, and hadn’t had a rest. Unless he just attacked the house first, to get some blood? She called Giles’s apartment, but there was no answer there, either. Buffy did leave a message. “Spike’s gone rogue. Stay away from Revello Drive or do a disinvite or something. I’m doing everything I can.” 

She meant to call Oz or Larry to see if they could drive over to the house and see what was what, or lacking that call Alan Finch and get the police over or something, but the battery cut out before she could finish the message on Giles’s phone. She didn’t have the time to break into another house to use their phone, and she didn’t remember all their phone numbers without the cell phone to tell her. Besides, it almost seemed wrong to drag anyone else into this after risking the Hernandezs. She’d set them up for this. She’d allowed them all to trust Spike. It was time to get this over with, and she was pretty sure she and Spike were on the same page. He would kill her before he killed them. 

If she met him where she’d said she would. 

The park was eerie. It was only half illuminated, with pools of staggered lighting making this spot and that one stand out in the darkness, this garbage can, that swingset, the goals on the soccer field. She didn’t see Spike. Buffy moved out from the street to the playground, every sense as on-the-alert as her injuries would permit. The birds could sense the sunlight coming and had started whistling in the trees, but it would be a good half hour before the dawn itself. The place seemed deserted. She knew better.

As she approached the climbing frame, Spike stepped out from the shadow of the twisty-slide, a cigarette in his hand. He idly puffed on it as Buffy limped into the playground. “Always good to be on time for a date, love.” 

“Our dates have always proven memorable,” Buffy told him. She viewed him through the climbing frame, the bars of the cage-like structure hindering a straight rush. Spike took another drag on his cigarette and started circling, creeping menacingly to the side to move around the bars. Buffy moved the same way, keeping the structure between them, trying to read his weaknesses. Under any other circumstance, she’d say this would be an easy vampire to kill. He was slow, he cringed with pain as he moved, and he hadn’t shifted back from his bumpy-face, which meant he was probably pretty hungry. Hungry vampires, injured vampires, tired vampires, they all made mistakes. 

But she was an injured, tired, tapped-out slayer, and he could read her weaknesses, too. 

Spike tossed his cigarette away and fell into an attack crouch. Buffy checked her grip on her stake. Even if she lost this one, her second was in the bib pocket of her overalls. He wouldn’t get her that way, or at least not easily. 

“Been enjoying the dance, love. But I don’t have time to drag it out,” Spike said, dashing the opposite way, and Buffy steeled herself. He nearly ran right into the stake, but his arm batted hers away at the last moment, and he dove for her throat. She shouldered him off before he could bite down, and then they were back to blows. 

At first Spike seemed to be winning the advantage, pressing through some barrier in himself that had him going all out, keeping Buffy on the defensive, driving her backward again, and this time not from her own choice. He backed her up into the soccer field, going for her torso, landing punches and kicks which she had to counter or endure, all the while holding tight to the stake. 

Then Spike seemed to hit some kind of second wall. His attacks began to lack momentum, and Buffy was able to turn the tables more frequently than not, hitting at his wounds, using her advantage to drive him back, until she got him on his knees, and she used her elbow to jam into the bandage on his neck, making him gurgle with pain and roll out of the way, but he caught her stake between his boots and wrenched it away from her. 

Buffy whirled, pulling her second stake from her pocket, to find Spike throwing her first one far across the soccer field toward the goal. “You don’t get me that way, love,” he said, his voice coming out gravely with the impact. “Dirty pool.” 

“Like you’re so above it,” Buffy snapped. 

Then she realized he _had_ been above it. He’d gone for her hands, yes, trying to get the stake out of them, but he hadn’t kicked at her thigh or her old belly wound, for that matter. This whole time she’d been using her advantage in attacking his injuries, making the pain work double for her, but Spike hadn’t been using the same trick. And he had before, punching at her wounds. Why would he suddenly be all chivalrous about it now? 

She didn’t have time to ponder it, because Spike attacked her again, rushing her like a football player, tackling her backwards. She used both hands to strike him in the small of the back, and he went sprawling. She dipped down to stake him from behind, but he rolled out of the way, and she was too slow. She impaled the earth as if she’d held a garden stake, and by the time she pulled it back up, Spike was circling her again. 

God, was this fight ever going to fucking end? 

“What’s taking you so long, Spike?” Buffy asked. “Where’s the great slayer of slayers?” 

“I’m not the one who does it,” Spike said. “You do it to yourselves, drawing death out like a spider spins its web, until you’re so surrounded by death you can do nothing _but_ die!” He reached out and grabbed her wrist, holding the stake between them. They glared at each other over the sharpened wood, and Spike sneered through his fangs. “Death’s what you want. It’s what you deserve. It’s your destiny.”

“There’s no such thing as destiny anymore!” Buffy grunted, and she tried to jerk the stake out of his hand. “That was always the whole fucking point!” She tugged on the weapon. “Give it back, Spike. I’m not going to let you kill me.” 

“That’s all you’ve ever wanted.”

“No it fucking _isn’t!_ ” She jerked again, but her broken hand betrayed her, and the stake slipped out of her grip. Spike looked down at his newly acquired weapon, and smiled at it through his fangs. 

“Get ready,” he said low, and he tossed the stake into the darkness. Buffy lost track of it, but the other one he’d thrown was sticking half out of the ground near the goal. She turned her back on Spike and ran for it. 

It was as if someone had pressed a button on the world, and it all seemed to move in slow motion. Every step Buffy took, every throb of her wounded leg, every breath in her ragged chest took minutes, hours, even though she was only running for a few seconds. She heard Spike panting behind her, three steps away, two steps, one, and then he’d seized her from behind, and they fell to the ground together, rolling over one another. She hadn’t made it to the stake. She didn’t have a weapon. She didn’t have a choice.

Spike was half atop her. It would take him only a moment to shift up and bite down. The idea flashed in her head; Spike’s fangs closing in her throat, fading beneath his bite. Maybe he’d do it gentle, take her down until she didn’t want to let go of him, like when he’d fed from her before. Maybe it would be painful, and she’d repay in pain all those dozens or hundreds of victims whom she hadn’t managed to save. Maybe it would be quick, and he’d break her neck, and she wouldn’t even have to think about it. 

Or maybe it didn’t have to happen at all. 

Buffy rolled over, digging her knee into Spike’s belly, holding his arms down, glaring into his yellow eyed face. “I don’t wanna _die_ ,” she yelled at him. “Not even by you, not even with how pretty you make it. Just because I’m sick of this life doesn’t mean I have to fucking _end_ it!”

Spike wrestled with her, rolling over again. “How else do you want this to end?” he growled down into her face. 

“I don’t know!” Buffy said, shoving him up until they faced each other on their knees. “But I’m _not,_ ” she punched him, “just going to _let_ you,” she punched him again, “ _kill_ me.” They batted at each other like week-old kittens. She pounded his nose and Spike grabbed her wrists. She wrenched her hands out of his grip and swatted at him again. Spike whapped her sideways with his forearm, and Buffy shoved him back, so he put his hands around her neck, and she shrugged him off by knocking his arms apart, and then she grabbed at his shoulders, and he sagged against her throat, and she pushed his fangs off, and then they were gasping and sagging, their foreheads against each other, their arms locked together, both of them too exhausted to fight anymore. 

The hard ridges of his forehead shrank against hers, and the yellow glaring eyes turned blue and gazed at her, tears brimming. “I can’t,” he whispered, his voice soft with exhaustion and pain. “You have to end it, pet. I can’t if you don’t want it.”

Buffy’s eyes closed as everything started to make sense. He’d believed her. All her transgressive death fantasies, he’d believed her. “Maybe,” she said, “maybe we don’t have to.” 

“I can’t do it again,” he said. “I can’t lose someone again, I can’t let them walk away, I can’t.”

“That’s how it always works.” 

“Not for demons!” he snapped, but she could read nothing but exhaustion behind the words. “I wish Dru had just killed me. I’d rather you just killed me.”

“Or that you’d kill me,” Buffy whispered. 

Spike nodded, but it was almost more a cringe than an acknowledgment. “It’s not what you want?” he asked.

Buffy wanted to say something pointed and human, about suicide threats and the impermanence of life and the proper way to end things, but she didn’t have the energy, and she wasn’t really human, either. Maybe that was the difference between human love and vampire love. Human love could learn how to let go. “It was,” she confessed. “I thought it was. But then I fell in love with you.”

She’d actually said it. Was that a mistake? Well, it was out now.

“I’m sorry,” Spike said. His hand reached out for her cheek. “God help me. I love you, too.” 

They regarded each other over the ruins of what they’d had. How long had they been pretending they didn’t care? Had it been from the very beginning? Finally Buffy sighed and sagged against him, and Spike’s arms went around her, and the two embraced in the slowly growing light. Was it done? Buffy wanted to ask, but she was afraid to put a name on it. They’d already called it love. What more was there to say?

Well, a lot in the end, she suspected, but they didn’t have time for it now. “Sunrise,” Buffy whispered. “You’ll burn.”

“We could always stay right here,” Spike whispered. “Hold you with me. Burn you to death on the pyre of my own body.” 

“You are so macabre,” Buffy said, half laughing. She pulled away and looked up at him. “Do I need to worry about you? If you go off wantonly killing, I actually _am_ going to have to slay you.” 

“You could always geas me up again,” Spike said. “Or, you know… tell me to behave.” 

“You could always get around the geas,” Buffy pointed out. “Please just behave. Please? Please….” 

“Shh, pet, it’s okay,” Spike said, pulling her back into his arms. “I’ll do whatever you want, you got that? Whatever that is. You are my liege, my heart, my slayer. I’ll be whatever you need me to be.” 

“Just on my side,” Buffy said. “That’s all that really matters. I want you on my side.” 

“Always,” Spike whispered. “Until dust.”

Buffy pulled away. That sounded like commitment. She searched his face, and saw nothing but earnestness there. “I love you, too,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

Spike’s head sank in relief, and they stood together. They had to help each other up. They were so wiped they could barely stand. Spike paused and picked up her fallen stake, setting it gingerly back in her bib pocket. “A slayer must always keep her weapon handy.” 

“I’ve got a few,” Buffy said, leaning against his shoulder. “Who would have thought you’d be defeated with words?”

“You’re the one who goes off about my being a poet,” Spike said. “Words always had power.”

They half carried each other down the three blocks to Revello Drive, pausing now and then to hold each other up. Spike was a bit more wobbly than Buffy was, but then she’d had some cursory first aid and rest. They checked in on each other, and Spike confessed he was starving now on top of all his injuries -- or because of all his injuries -- and he really needed some blood. “I was looking forward to draining you dry, love.” 

“And then what were you going to do?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Go find Drusilla?” 

Spike hesitated. “Probably just wait for the sun,” he admitted. “Was getting a bit tired of the whole farce myself. What were you going to do?”

She shrugged. “Go back to Wes and wait for my next assignment,” she said. “But I probably wouldn’t have cared if it killed me, either.”

“Why not?”

“You’re what makes me happy enough to want to live.” 

Spike laughed low. 

“What?”

“I’m a terrible vampire,” Spike said. “I set out to kill a slayer, and all I do is make her want to live.” 

“Well, I’m not much better as a slayer,” Buffy said. “I didn’t dust you, either.”

“You’re a fantastic slayer. You can make a vampire not want to kill.”

“You still want to kill,” Buffy pointed out. 

“Not if it costs me you,” Spike said. 

Buffy blushed and they staggered together up the steps to the front door of the Revello Drive house. The lights were blazing. Buffy didn’t think anything of this, too tired to do more than think that Wes and Anyanka were probably waiting up. She’d forgotten they hadn’t answered the phone. 

She opened the front door to find four men in black facing her in the front hallway. Two carried guns, two carried crossbows and crosses, and they quickly aimed them all at Buffy and Spike. Giles and Wesley were standing in the hallway, both of them huddled together talking to another figure. 

Buffy stood in the doorway, bewildered for a moment, until the neatly dressed figure left Giles and Wes and strolled through the guards to gaze down upon her. “Quentin Travers,” she said, her voice weak. 

“Buffy Summers,” he replied. “It would seem you have some explaining to do.” 

Buffy stared at Travers, the head watcher, the commander of her life, he who had shoved her into danger and shackled her to abusers and even tried to have her killed, and she wanted to be horrified. She almost thought she was scared. But he’d sounded so much like Ricky Ricardo announcing to Lucy, “You have some ‘splainin to do!” that instead she burst into laughter. Possibly she’d have laughed at anything he’d said. The laughter was so hard she went woozy, and everything went grey, and she fell to her knees in hysterics, almost fainting with exhaustion and blood-loss and everything else she’d had to endure. 

_Well, that’ll make a great impression,_ she thought as she fell. 


	36. Inquisition

The officious sod didn’t seem particularly concerned that the slayer had just collapsed at his feet in stress hysterics, and had nearly lost consciousness. While Spike went to his knees alongside her, smoothing her hair to bring her around, and Giles and Wesley had shoved the men-at-arms out of the way while they went to her, too, the fellow threw up his hands and went to speak to a pretty, rather young woman in severe clothes and hairstyle, who held a clipboard and notebook. “Lydia, make a note,” he said. “The slayer has descended into hysterics.” 

“And who’s this wanker?” Spike asked Giles. 

“Quentin Travers. Head of the Watchers’ Council.” Giles helped Buffy to sit up. “Do you know what’s wrong with her?” 

“Mostly exhaustion. Maybe blood loss. Big wound in her thigh, small ones on her left arm, bad hands.” 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Buffy said, pushing them off her, but she kept breaking into mad giggles, and she couldn’t seem to get her feet under her. Spike would have loved to pick her up and carry her to the couch, but his own injuries made that impossible. Finally Wesley and Giles hoisted her up between them and set her in the center of the couch. Anyanka sat in the living room on a chair, her ankles crossed demurely, her eyes darting nervously. 

Travers followed them in and looked disapprovingly over Buffy from the middle of the room. “Where have you been?” he asked her. “The indications from the news service were that the vampire you went to slay was dispatched hours ago.” 

“It’s a really long story,” Buffy said, finally starting to gather herself. “Mostly it was a long walk to get here.” She burst into laughter again. 

“Someone, get her some water,” Giles said to no one in particular, and Anyanka stood up hastily.

“I’ll get it,” she said. “Spike, you come with me.” 

Spike wanted to stay right where he was, with Buffy, but Anyanka had her hand on his arm. Wesley glanced at them. “I don’t think—”

“I’d love to get it,” Anyanka said. “Do any of you lovely gentlemen require refreshments? No?” 

The armed guards made no reply. Spike considered. At least this would be a way to get out of their sight for a moment. Clearly they were prepared for vampires, and he didn’t know what was happening, exactly. 

“Well, we’ll just get that for Buffy, then,” Anyanka said, and dragged Spike into the kitchen with her. 

One of the men armed with a crossbow came with them and stood in the doorway, silently judging as Anyanka pulled out a glass and filled it with water. 

“What’s going on?” Spike asked. 

“I don’t know. They’ve been here for hours,” she whispered to Spike, low enough that even their guard would have difficulty hearing. Spike had his vampire ears, though, so it was clear enough to him. “They keep asking about you, about Angel and Drusilla, about Willow and the Mayor and everything. Wesley and Giles were shouting a lot. They won’t let us answer the phone. I tried to sneak upstairs, but their thugs said no one goes alone.” 

Spike used the opportunity to snag some blood. He didn’t think he had time to heat it, so he drank it cold and slimy out of the fridge. “They ask about you?” 

“They know all about me,” Anyanka hissed. “They pulled out Giles’s books and talked about my amulet and everything. They seemed really upset when I told them I couldn’t reintegrate the dimensions. Well, who could?” Her voice had risen now; not to shouting, but she’d forgotten to be careful. “Even D’Hoffryn couldn’t reinstate a dimension that has undergone complete bifurcation. It wasn’t _me_ that did it, it was the wish! It’s the client who holds the power, I just make it happen.”

“What do they want to have happen?”

“I don’t know,” Anyanka said, lowering her voice again. “But they asked a lot of questions about the geas, and about Angel’s soul, and about Buffy calling her mom. About everything.”

Spike only got a few swallows of blood, but they were enough to take the edge off his hunger. Buffy was more important, anyway. He followed Anyanka into the living room as she carried in the water. 

“So you are telling me,” Travers was saying, “that although you knew this Xander would take revenge, you let him live all the same?” 

The man loomed over the girl, who seemed to have shrunk beneath his interrogation. Her bruises were spreading, and even her voice had gone small. Spike would have liked to plunk himself beside her on the couch, protect her with his fangs and his good left arm, but that would draw too much attention. This was bureaucratic stuff. Buffy was on her own.

“No, Xander just escaped,” Buffy said, accepting the water from Anyanka. She only took a sip before she set it on the coffee table. “I-I went after him as soon as I could, but… um… there was a fire door, and…” 

“And you let him escape that way?” 

“It was daylight,” Buffy said. “We’d been under a spell, I couldn’t move fast enough. I didn’t think he’d….” 

“I can attest that Buffy did all that could be expected, given the circumstances,” Wesley said.

“Yes, we’re well aware of what your stance on the subject is, Wyndam-Pryce.”

“I still feel you haven’t listened,” Wesley said. 

“So tell me about this alliance with the vampires,” Travers said, turning back to Buffy. “You arranged for them to have sanctuary and blood in exchange for what? For, ah _, favors_?” 

Spike stiffened.

“I do not like what you are implying, Travers,” Giles said sharply. 

“Nor do I, Mr. Giles. Nor do I.” 

“You yourself have indicated, even ordered that non-lethal sucker gangs be allowed to remain operating in certain cities,” Wesley said. “That their presence diminishes the threat from other, more violent vampires.” 

“Ah, but this was not a ‘sucker gang,’ am I correct?” Travers persisted. “This was Angelus and the Whirlwind. Almost the entire unit, reunited again, and given safe harbor by the slayer herself.”

“That was my idea,” Giles said. 

“It doesn’t matter if the idea came from the devil,” Travers said. “Buffy agreed to this. She granted sanctuary to some of the most violent vampires we have on record, who have targeted vampire hunters, who have undermined our goals over the entire course of their sordid history.” 

Buffy looked very small, sitting all by herself in the center of the couch. Her face was white behind her wounds, and she sat with her arms folded in on herself. The watchers had almost made her physically smaller, as if they’d diminished her in age and power, and she let them. “Giles put them under a geas,” she said softly. “I had to find Willow.” 

“Yes, you had to find Willow. You had to find her so desperately that you sat for months while the vampiress dug herself deeper into her nest.” 

“I needed, um… we had to translate another spell. Um.”

“And what was that other spell for?” 

There was silence. Spike held himself extremely still.

“Allow me to remind you. It was to empower a mad vampire so that she would again pose a threat to humanity!” 

“That’s not why,” Buffy muttered, and Spike shot a glance at Anyanka. 

“They didn’t learn that from Giles,” Spike hissed. 

“They raided his notes,” Anyanka said, indicating the dining room, which was disturbed. “The woman is a brilliant investigator. She deserves better than this.”

“Dru didn’t pose a threat,” Buffy was muttering. “She was under a geas, too.”

“But why were you so keen on restoring her to strength?” 

“So she’d, uh, find Willow for me.” 

“But she did _not_ find this Willow,” Travers pressed. “Or did I misunderstand these records?” 

“We found her. We just, um, we couldn't get to her….”

“So you attacked a human.”

“What human?” Wesley asked. 

“Mayor Wilkins, and he was not a mere human,” Giles said. “Buffy uncovered the Ascension of a greater demon.” 

“Yes, yes, I understand that information did fall into her lap while on said mission,” Travers said. “But that’s no explanation for why she targeted a human in the first place.” 

Spike wanted to point out that Buffy hadn’t just hared off after a human. That it was _he_ who had explained the Mayor was evil, and that they’d known he was evil before she’d raided his office, that the guy hired vampires and had lived over a hundred years and had likely sold his soul and thus probably didn’t count as human anymore, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. The watcher’s men-at-arms seemed to have mostly forgotten about him, or assumed he was still geased up and harmless, their attention focused on the grilling Travers was giving the slayer, and Spike was just as glad. He’d be no use to Buffy with a crossbow bolt in his chest. The tone of this interrogation had become quite clear. 

“I myself cleared that mission, Mr. Travers,” Wes said. “The Mayor had been reported as a malign element.” 

“And who had made that report?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Buffy snapped, sounding frustrated. “Wilkins was a demonic evil sorcerer and it turned out I had to kill him. And he didn’t even _have_ the stupid talisman or whatever it was. It was just one more nasty I had to slay.” 

“And you were grievously injured in the attempt,” Travers said. “Was that correct?” 

“It wasn’t just an attempt,” Buffy said, with only a trace of the anger Spike thought she should have. “I did it. I killed him.”

“Here is where I find it strange,” Travers said. “That a mere human could cause you so much damage that you needed to call in further reinforcements.” 

Buffy looked up at him. “Are you telling me a slayer _doesn’t_ need her watcher? Are you saying Wes should have hung out in Cleveland?” 

“I am trying to get a handle on the situation here,” Travers said. “You seem to have garnered an unprecedented number of associates, two watchers, three demons, two untrained civilians, and this… other creature.” He gestured at Anyanka, who cringed a little at being singled out.

“Anyanka knows things.” Buffy murmured. 

“And with all this assistance,” Travers continued, “you continually fail, succumbing beneath setbacks and trials that most slayers with a quarter of your experience would attempt to overcome on their own, and yet you continue to demand more resources.” 

“And what does that tell you?” Giles asked. “Those slayers with less experience, fewer associates, what actually happened to them?” 

“I know you wouldn’t be suggesting that Buffy _shouldn’t_ have survived,” Wesley said. His tone was dark. The fight with Willow had changed _his_ tune. 

“I am _suggesting_ that the slayer has flaws in her judgement,” Travers told Wesley. He stood a little further from Buffy and looked down on her. “What happened to Monica Stiles?” 

Buffy’s white face flushed. “Um. She was killed by vampires.” 

“Less than a month after your Cruciamentum.” 

“Her _mistimed_ Cruciamentum,” Giles muttered, as if that made a difference. If they’d gotten their timing right, they would have been trying to kill her the night she and Spike got drunk together on the cliff. Would that have made it better? 

“And why were those vampires permitted to live?” Travers asked. 

“They weren’t. I dusted every last one of them,” Buffy said. 

“But only _after_ they had, for some reason, targeted your watcher.” 

“Are you saying I should know these things in advance?” 

“Sometimes slayers do,” Travers said. “In fact they will frequently have prophetic dreams.” 

“So I’m not prophecy girl enough for you?” Buffy asked. “I thought there were no such things as prophecies anymore.” 

“Not in this dimension,” Anyanka muttered. 

Travers lifted his head archly. “I just find it strange that the one watcher who would not stand between you and the vampires should find herself in a position to be threatened by them.” 

Buffy glared at him, showing a little of her fire. “Well, it’s a tough life. Things happen.”

“And you believe that because life is _tough,_ as you put it, you need assistance from demons.” 

Buffy looked down at her knees again, the fire quenched. 

“I want to get back to the Whirlwind,” Travers said. “Why did you choose them?” 

“I don’t know about any Whirlwind,” Buffy muttered. 

“Angelus, Drusilla, Darla, and William the Bloody.” Travers collected a piece of paper from Lydia. “They rampaged together for twenty years, carving a bloody path through Europe and East Asia until they scattered. And when you selected vampire associates, you selected _these_.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Buffy said. 

“And you were _begging_ for help, were you?” 

“Look, they offered. Angelus wanted to get into my pants. The others came with him.” 

“And you offered your _services_ to this Angelus in exchange for him and his gang’s assistance?” 

“No!” Buffy glared at him. “I never touched Angel!” 

“Then why did they agree to help you? I’m afraid I still don’t understand.” 

“Because they aren’t normal vampires!” Buffy shouted at him. “They aren’t the dumb bloody street walkers with nothing in their heads but their next kill or more power. Angel thought he loved me. Drusilla thought he loved her. Spike thought Dru loved him.” She looked over at Spike, and then back at Travers, pleading in her eyes. “These are vampires who think about more than blood. They think about love and beauty and pretentious books and… and stupid demon Christmas. And I don’t know anything about any Whirlwind or any bloody path through Europe or anything. Did they kill a lot of people? Probably. But so have I. They couldn’t kill anymore, and it’s my job to prevent killings, not play judge and jury. And when it comes to the ugly twists of what it is to be _a person_ they understood it all too well. That’s why they were against Willow, and why they didn’t bow to the Master before her. Maybe they’re not humans anymore. But god, they are people! Violent, hungry, needy people, and of all the people in this world, I understand that.” 

Spike stood a little straighter, filled with love.

“Thank you, Miss Summers. I think you’ve cleared up a great many things with that.” Travers nodded at two of the men in black. 

They came up to Buffy holding a set of handcuffs. They were thick looking, strong enough to hold a slayer. 

“What’s going on?” Giles asked.

Travers stood as if pronouncing a sentence. “Buffy Summers, you are to come back with me to England to await an inquiry of the full Watchers’ Council.”

“But she didn’t do anything wrong,” Wesley said. 

“You’re to return to England too, Wesley,” Travers said. “We need to clear up one or two matters about your own conduct in this affair.”

“Are you claiming that I have done something worthy of censure?” Wesley asked. 

“You and Giles both,” Travers said. 

Spike tried even more desperately to catch Buffy’s eye, but she was staring at the floor. It was very clear she was pointedly not looking at him, not looking at anyone. The watchers argued around her, for and against her, but she said nothing. 

“It is a shame I can’t fire you twice, Giles,” Travers went on. “I may see what else can be done to make your life here most unpleasant. Perhaps a visit from the IRS, or maybe Immigration will teach you what’s important in this life.” 

“Buffy is not a criminal,” Giles said. “She’s done everything you’ve asked her to do.” 

“Miss Summers here has willingly harbored vampires. She has expressed sympathy for them, and allowed two out of three members of the Whirlwind to escape, endangering civilians. She has revealed her identity, endangered her watchers, and the very seat of the Watchers’ Council itself. And you claim she has done nothing wrong.”

“She’s a warrior angel,” Wesley said staunchly. “You can fire me. Arrest me. I won’t tell you anything different.” 

“Wait just a moment,” Giles said. Buffy closed her eyes as the watchers closed their handcuffs around her wrists. She just sat there and let them. And all the others were letting them, too. “Are you seriously suggesting that the slayer is more useful to our cause behind bars than she is actively out there and fighting the vampiric threats?” 

“No, Giles,” Travers said, heading for the door. “That is not at all what I am suggesting.” 

Spike could see it. What Travers meant. Wesley and Giles didn’t see it. Even Anyanka didn’t quite see it. Buffy had seen it, long ago, and that was why she was so empty now. She just kept looking at the floor, far away from him, from her friends, from herself. The super-powerful slayer abandoned in that young girl body. What had they turned her into? 

Spike knew exactly what they’d turned her into. An abused child facing the overwhelming power of her abuser. “Well, sod that,” Spike muttered. Crossbows be damned. He took three steps forward, wrapped his hands around the bastard’s head, and snapped Travers’ neck with a crunch. 


	37. Aftereffects

Everything happened at once. 

Travers dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, and the watchers’ goons started shouting. One of the guards fired a crossbow at Spike, which missed when Buffy kicked his leg and the bolt hit Spike below the heart, sticking out of his torso to add to the myriad other wounds he’d gotten. One of the goons with the guns fired off a round, and it broke a lamp. The guns swiveled to Spike, then at Buffy, but Buffy had been broken out of her guilt-trance by the sudden action, and she snatched the gun out of the nearest goon’s hand, saying, “I am sick to death of these things!” 

Anyanka read the writing on the wall, and when the guy nearest her pointed his gun at Buffy, she casually took it off him from the side. “I don’t really know how to fire this,” she said, backing up to Buffy and away from the guy. 

“Just point it at him,” Buffy said. 

“Doing that.” 

That left the fourth goon with the crossbow, and he backed up into the foyer, pointing it at anyone who seemed ready to move. Buffy came after him, but he was making a swift retreat. “Step away,” he said, reaching for the door. “No one move or I shoot!” It seemed he was about to escape. He opened the door behind him. 

Two figures stood in the early dawn light, and one let loose a punch that sent the goon sprawling. Larry shook the punch out of his hand while Oz disarmed the man. 

“Sorry we're late. Something going on?” Larry asked. 

“We miss anything?” Oz added.

“Help us here!” Giles shouted, and the two boys ran into the living room, where they helped the watchers subdue the remaining unarmed guards, who under the threat of Buffy and Anyanka’s guns were now pretty docile. Giles unhandcuffed Buffy while Wes and the boys tied up all four guards with twine from the kitchen. 

“What happened?” Larry asked. “We were watching the news, and then you guys wouldn’t answer your phone, so Oz picked me up at daybreak to check in. Everything okay?”

“Who are these guys?” Oz asked. 

“Watchers,” Giles said. He filled them in as much as possible in a few words. 

“What do we do with her?” Anyanka asked, as Lydia held her hands up under the threat of the gun. She had dropped her clipboard. 

“What do we do with any of them?” Buffy asked glumly. “Tie her up with the others, for now. I’ll have to think about this. And put that gun down. I really hate those things.” She went over to Spike, who had gone to the floor with one more injury to his name. She examined the new wound. It wasn’t close enough to hit his heart as it pulled out, but two more inches and it would have been. “What the fuck were you thinking?” she asked. “I told you not to kill.” 

“Punish me,” Spike said darkly. 

Buffy only closed her eyes. Idiot. 

“He was going to kill you, Buffy. That’s what all his posturing and _endangering civilians_ and _harboring sympathies_ for us was about. He was going to have you executed.” 

“I know,” Buffy said. And she did know. She had known at the end of her Cruciamentum, ever since Monica Stiles had said she was so proud of Buffy. She’d known from that moment on that the watchers didn’t just want to use and abuse her. They would be just as happy if she were dead. Then they’d have a fresh, unjaded slayer to exploit. 

“You said you wanted me on your side,” Spike said. “He was _not_ on your side.” 

Buffy looked over Spike, whose torso looked like a cheese grater with all those holes in it. She took hold of the end of the crossbow bolt. “Don’t move,” she said, and she yanked it out. Spike swore. “Just one more hole, thank god. You don’t know when to quit, do you?” She sighed. “Do you need anything?” 

“Just three quarts of blood and you,” Spike said. 

“Now is _not_ the time to be charming,” Buffy told him, but she kissed his forehead. She stood up. “All right, tie them to the chairs,” she said, indicating the goons and the dining room. “We can’t leave them unguarded. Larry? Can you watch them? We need to talk. We’ll try to keep you involved, but….”

“I get it,” Larry said. “I’ve seen hostage movies. I’m not dumb enough to leave them to get inventive.” 

“I’m sorry to leave you out…”

“This is demon stuff. I know the rest of you have bigger stakes than I do. Or something,” he added with a laugh. 

He was right. With Oz as a werewolf, that left Larry as the only non-watcher pure human in the bunch.

“Can I have one of the guns?” 

“You can have Giles’s sword to intimidate them with, if you must,” Buffy said. “I’m destroying the fucking guns. And you can always hit them if they get out of line.”

“Fair enough,” Larry said. “Just promise to fill me in.” 

“Promise,” Buffy said. Just fill him in on _what_ she had no idea. 

***

Anyanka didn’t like the basement. It was musty and smelled of sex she wasn’t having, which made her wistful. 

“So. Thoughts?” Buffy asked everyone as they ranged about Spike’s room. 

Spike had asked for a few minutes to get some blood and change his clothes, and Buffy went down to help him, but then both of them took so long about it that Anyanka had poked her head in and said, “If you’re down there having sex, it’s probably a bad time.” 

“We’re not,” Buffy called up. Anyanka had come down and seen they were in fact not. Spike had changed his jeans, and Buffy was washing the blood off his chest at the basement sink. “Do you think we could meet down here? The stairs were a little hard to manage.” 

After seeing the extent of Spike’s wounds, Anyanka had to agree. The six of them perched on the bed or on chairs or leaned against the stairs. Spike had a big bandage on his neck, the rest of his wounds covered by his clothes. Buffy had shed her bloodstained jacket, but she was still in the dirt-stained overalls she’d come home in. 

Oz sat on the washing machine. “What do we do with them?” he asked. “Larry’s having fun playing Dirty Harry, but we can’t keep them under armed guard forever.” 

“You know my vote,” Spike said.

“We’re not killing them,” Buffy said sternly.

“You’ll never let me have any fun again, will you?” Spike said. 

“You’ll pardon my asking,” Wesley said, “but what exactly are we going to do about Spike? I understand your motive was to stand with Buffy.” He swallowed. “As distasteful as it is, I do understand. But if the geas has broken—”

“The geas was always going to break,” Buffy said. “It was keyed to Xander and Willow’s demise.” 

Wesley looked at Giles. “And you arranged this?” 

“Yes, I was very foolish. Moving on,” Giles said. 

“Spike’s agreed not to kill,” Buffy said. 

“I’m sorry, but that is demonstrably untrue,” Wesley said, half indicating the upstairs with his hand. 

“Travers was going to execute me,” Buffy said. “Spike doesn’t like that.” 

“And if I were to agree with Travers?” Wesley asked.

Spike cocked his head and eyed Wesley’s throat. “What blood type are you?” 

“Spike!” Buffy barked. 

Spike visibly backed down. “Sorry, love.” 

“ _Do_ you agree with Travers?” Buffy asked, turning back to Wes. 

“Not on that, if that was really what he was going to do,” Wesley said. “But some of the things he said… and to just kill him like that….”

“Look, I’m sorry if you’re wigged, Wes, but this is where we are now. If I’d gone with them, there was no way out for me. Spike… saw that. That’s why he acted when he did. No one else was going to do anything to stop them, were they?” Wes hesitated, but shook his head. “So now we have one junior watcher and four thugs up there to figure out how to deal with.” 

“Not to mention the entire council,” Wesley said. “Including, I might add, my own father. Most of them will have known Travers’ mission. Even if not, they’re going to get suspicious quite quickly with the entire team missing in action.” 

“We can’t let them go,” Spike said darkly. “You know what you have to do.” 

“That won’t even _work_ ,” Buffy said, looking exasperated. “I can’t just kill them and walk off. You think I didn’t have the idea myself, Spike? It’s not a dragon you can cut the head off and the rest dies. These aren’t _like_ vampires. They don’t fall into aimless minions when you kill their Master. The organization itself will hunt me. I’d spend the rest of my life either hunting them down or on the run from them, probably both. And we know how long that life will be, with them _and_ the demons after me.” 

“I’ll protect you.” 

“Until we get another night like last night,” Buffy said. “You really like the gunshots, Spike?” 

Spike looked down. 

“Killing them is immoral itself, but it’s also just digging me in deeper,” Buffy said, slumping on the bed.

“There must be some other way to keep them quiet,” Oz said. 

“There’s probably a spell,” Anyanka told them. 

“Not one that I know of,” Giles said. “I could contact some friends of mine, witches from a coven in Devon, but they work with the Watchers’ Council themselves, helping them locate potentials. They may not be willing to work with us on this. And even if they did, it would take time. Time we do not have before the Council starts asking questions about their operatives here.”

“Could you see them off, Wes?” Buffy asked. 

“I wish I could say I could,” he said. “But it’s become clear to me I am not gnostically high enough in the council to know all of their plans, nor for them to listen to my suggestions. Giles and I spoke of this some yesterday, at the school.” 

“And what did you come up with?” Buffy asked. 

Giles hesitated, then shrugged. “That we were as powerless to change the system as you.”

“Ugh!” Buffy slid off Spike’s bed and started to pace, her limp obvious to Anyanka. “We can’t let them go, because they’ll just arrest me and kill Spike. We can’t keep them, because questions will be asked. See above.” 

“You sure we can’t kill them?” Spike asked. 

“Same reasons as keeping them,” Buffy said, without, Anyanka noticed, trying to appeal to his morality. “And that’ll just get them to hunt me down as rogue. We don’t have the ability or the time to do any kind of memory wipe.” 

“And if you’ll excuse me, but a memory wipe won’t solve your underlying problem,” Anyanka said. “That the watchers keep you as their slave.” 

“More like a soldier,” Giles said. 

“A child soldier,” Wesley added. 

“Ugh!” Buffy grunted and tilted her head back. “I wish… I _wish…._ ”

The words tickled in the back of Anyanka’s brain. She used to wait for that _I wish_. She’d cajole and coax and manipulate out that _I wish._ There was a time the power of _I wish_ in Anyanka’s hands could change the very universe. “ _I_ wish I could _help_ ,” she said desperately.

Buffy stopped and looked at her, thoughtful. “Anyanka,” she said. “How did people summon you?”

Anyanka stopped fuming and stared. “Um. Well… either they’d summon me by name — Giles did that — or… or they’d just… simmer under enough lust for vengeance that D’Hoffryn or I would hear them.” She stood up off her chair. “Did you want to cast a wish?” 

“Can I do that?” Buffy asked. “I mean, _you_ can’t do that anymore, but you said there were other vengeance demons. You said you could hear how loud I called for vengeance. Could they hear me, if I called loud enough?” 

“I’ve been thinking about that, and why no one has before, since you’re so loud. I thought maybe because you’ve been under the auspices of your own calling, and we couldn’t cast a wish that would stop you from being the slayer, maybe that’s why the emotion summons didn’t work. But the watchers are just human,” Anyanka continued. “There’s no reason to protect them from a vengeance. If you can get D’Hoffryn’s attention, he might listen to you.”

“How would I do that?” 

“Well, I could summon him. I’d need a large enough space paved with stone or earth. D’Hoffryn’s summoning circle tends to burn the floor. Ordinarily I’d try to find a big crypt.”

“We don’t have time to find a crypt. Would concrete work? This basement is concrete.”

“If we roll the carpet back, and push aside the bed. Probably.” 

“Wait a minute. We’re summoning yet _another_ demon?” Wesley asked. 

Oz and Giles were already rolling back the carpet, and Spike had jumped down off the bed so they could clear it, though his injuries kept him from helping much. 

“Wes… I really hate to say this, because the whole point is that it’s not black and white. But you’re either with me, or with them,” Buffy said. “I’d really hate to send you up to hang out with Larry, but…”

“You promise not to kill them?” Wesley asked. “I understand your reasoning. I was horrified when I learned what you’ve been through. But to ally yourself solely with the demons….” 

“I can’t ally myself with people who want to destroy me,” Buffy said. “All I want is to help people. All people. Even some demon people. I want to stop the killing as much as anyone else. All of it.”

“Your vengeance will need to be carefully worded,” Wesley said. 

“Thanks.” Buffy glanced up at Spike. “I think we’ve learned that lesson.” 

They cleared the floor until a wide enough space was open. 

“Now what do we do?” Buffy asked. 

“Well, do we have any candles? It might help if we prepare a kind of altar for him.”

“Yes, I have some upstairs,” Giles said. “I’ll tell Larry we’re summoning a demon, and not to be surprised at any sounds he hears. Is this likely to be dangerous?” 

“D’Hoffryn’s pretty forgiving of mortals. Not those who deserve vengeance, but innocent ones. His goal is to dispense justice in the world, after all. But you might want to all stand back there. He’s probably not pleased with me for splitting a dimension and losing my amulet. This might take some convincing.” 

“If he’ll stop to listen to my story,” Buffy said, “I can convince him.” 

***

Buffy and the watchers conferred for a while about the best way to word both Buffy’s grievance, and her vengeance. Spike was all for killing the lot of them with the power of her wish, but Buffy wouldn’t do it. “I won’t be as bad as they were. And besides, what if some were like Wes, and didn’t know? Or believed all their hype and really meant well, like Giles? I’m not going to kill innocents, even if they are misguided.” 

“Well, just _maim_ them, then,” Spike snapped. 

“Can we maybe leave this to the humans?” Giles asked him. 

After Buffy figured out what she mostly wanted to say, and had rehearsed it in her head enough times she was pretty sure she wouldn’t forget anything important, she laid out an attractive space for D’Hoffryn to appear in. She used one of Dru’s decorative scarves as a place holder and set candles on either side, staggered on boxes so they’d be of different heights. Anyanka knelt before it, drew a circle around herself to direct the demon’s attention, clasped her hands, and began chanting. “Blessed be the name of D’Hoffryn. Let this space be now a gateway to the world of Arashmaharr where demons are spawned. We come in supplication. We bend as the reed in the flow of the river of your greatness.” This went on for a little while, Anyanka heaping praise and compliments on the head of the demon in the hopes of attracting his attention. 

The smell of burning dust tickled the air. Oz sneezed, and Spike sniffed. The raven croaked in its repaired cage. The area around the scarf burst up into blue flames, and there stood the demon, grey skinned and behorned and generally bizarre looking. 

“Anyanka,” he said, his voice dark and brisk in the basement. “I made it clear the last time you summoned me that your time has passed. I will not give you another power center, and I shall not reinstate you as a vengeance demon. Live your mortal life, and be content with it!” 

“I never called you, oh great D’Hoffryn,” Anyanka said. “It must have been the other Anyanka, in the realm disjoined from this one.” 

D’Hoffryn squinted at her. “So it was. Forgive my anger. But the answer will be the same.” 

“I have not called on you to reinstate me as a vengeance demon,” Anyanka said. “Though, if that option is on the table….” 

“Anyanka,” D’Hoffryn warned. 

Anyanka clasped her hands closed again and bowed her head. “I call on behalf of a servant of the lower beings,” Anyanka said. “A being whose very existence speaks to the causes of vengeance. I call you on behalf of the slayer.” She gestured to Buffy to step out of the group. 

Buffy stepped forward, limping on her wounded leg. She wanted to hold the same level of ceremony that Anyanka had created. She thought D’Hoffryn would expect pomp and circumstance and plenty of praise. Her mind went blank. Her usual _modus operandi_ on seeing a demon like him was to whip out a stake. “Uh, hi,” she said. 

“And what does the slayer of vampires dare to expect from me?” D’Hoffryn said. 

“I call for vengeance,” Buffy said. “Anyanka says I have earned that right.” 

D’Hoffryn dismissed her with a gesture. “Your destiny is settled. You were born to be the slayer, and you shall die a slayer, and no interference on my part can wreak vengeance on the Powers that decreed it.”

“I don’t seek vengeance for being made a slayer,” Buffy said. “But my calling as a slayer has been guided all my life by a group of men called the Watchers. They swore they were to guide me and protect me, but I have found that they do not. They have risked my life foolishly for their own purposes, ordered me to betray friends, and they have… used me… for their own pleasure.” She swallowed. She did not like admitting to that part. “The entire Council has, to different extents, been party or privy to these abuses. For myself, and for the other potential slayer girls who have come before and after me, I ask that all watchers who have abused their charges be punished, and the power of their organization restructured so they can’t… hurt… anyone again.” 

D’Hoffryn’s head cocked at this request. “You request vengeance, not merely for yourself, but on behalf of all your sisters?” 

Buffy nodded. 

“And not merely against those who have abused you, but all who have abused them?”

“Yes. It is not a small request, I know. But Anyanka--” Buffy pulled Anyanka up to stand beside her. “Anyanka says that my vengeance is pure. I beg it of you, oh great D’Hoffryn. Protect my sisters and myself from the betrayal of these powerful men.” 

D’Hoffryn’s nostrils flared. “They are not all men. You are aware of this, Anyanka?” 

“I protect women,” Anyanka said. “Even from other women.” 

“Would you stand beside this slayer in the future of her cause? Would you give your mortal life to protecting these slayer children from their abusers?” 

“I’ve never heard a vengeance I believe in more,” Anyanka said. 

“Hm.” D’Hoffryn examined Anyanka, and then Buffy. “How would you exact this vengeance?”

“I ask that all watchers who have abused their charges feel what I feel,” Buffy said. “I want them to feel the guilt they’ve forced me to carry. I want them to feel the weight of the responsibility, the pain of the failure. I want them to know what I know… and give the power back to the young women they’ve stolen it from. This is my wish.” 

D’Hoffryn closed his eyes and drew in a breath. “Yes. Yes, this is a powerful vengeance. And yes, it is pure. But it will take strength. Anyanka, I must call in your brothers and sisters.” 

Anyanka swallowed, but she nodded. “We are ready.” 

More fire burned on the pavement surrounding Anyanka and Buffy, and a dozen robed figures flared into existence around them. The weight of the air in the room turned oppressive as the power of all those vengeance demons reflected around the circle. Buffy shuddered. 

D’Hoffryn stepped forward off his altar cloth. “What is your name, slayer?” he asked her. 

“Buffy Summers.” 

“Buffy Summers, I must draw the vengeance from you. You will feel the pain anew. Can you endure this?” 

“If it gets me free, I can endure anything.”

D’Hoffryn placed his hand on Buffy’s forehead. “Give me this pain,” he said. “Give it so I may dispense it where it is due.” 

Buffy didn’t do anything, but his words must have held the power, because suddenly Buffy’s whole world sank to abject misery. The guilt clawed at her, the sorrow, the loneliness, the horror. The pain from the physical wounds she carried flared, and she screamed from it, only staying on her feet because she seemed glued to D’Hoffryn’s hand. Memories flashed in her head, of vomiting in disgust after letting a victim die, to choking on some vampire’s cock as she lured his pack out of hiding, to bowing under Carter’s orders, to that terrible desperation when she’d thought Monica would come to save her, to the crashing despair when she’d learned it was all her doing. Her head ached and her heart wept and her body broke under the pain.

 _No other girl will have to endure this_ , she thought to herself. And that gave her a core of strength. She stood in pain and wept as D’Hoffryn pulled his hand away. 

All three of the others had had to hold Spike back when Buffy screamed. He was still struggling against them. She glanced over and gave him a reassuring nod. He visibly relaxed, and the others looked relieved. Buffy sank to her knees beside Anyanka, partly in solidarity, mostly because she was really tired now. 

The vengeance demons surrounding them joined hands and began chanting in an indecipherable language. The power oppressing the room became almost unbearable, and it was hard to breathe within the circle. Buffy and Anyanka held hands and trembled. It built and built and built until it seemed the world itself would fall in on them. 

“Enough!” D’Hoffryn cried, and clapped his hands. There was a rumble of thunder, and the demons around them stepped away, disappearing into nothingness. It was finally possible to breathe. 

Screams came from upstairs. Everyone looked up. 

“It is done,” D’Hoffryn said. “Those who have betrayed the slayers and the potentials. They have been punished.” He turned to Anyanka. “Enjoy your new job, dear. It’ll be quite the endeavor.” He snapped his fingers and vanished. 

Finally released, Spike jumped forward and knelt at Buffy’s side, caressing her cheek. “You all right, love?” 

“No,” she said. “That sucked.” But then she giggled and reached forward to hug him. 

“What happened upstairs?” Giles asked. 

“I don’t know,” Buffy said, leaning away from Spike. “Are the thugs with the guns watchers, or are they just hired goons?”

“They all undergo some of the watcher’s training,” Giles said. “You have to be indoctrinated, to an extent.” 

“Then my guess is, it worked on our captives up there. Let’s go see.”

They trooped up the stairs, Spike and Buffy holding each other steady as they climbed. Spike didn’t seem to want to take his hands off her. Buffy didn’t blame him. She had probably screamed pretty loudly. 

“Guys?” Larry asked as they came in. “I know you were summoning a demon, but what just happened? Because this is weird.” 

The smell of blood washed the dining room. Three of the five captives had wounds on their faces, blood dripping down their legs, seeping from their arms. They were identical on each of them, the cut above the eyebrow, the scrape on the elbow, the gunshot in the left leg, the swollen hands. Every wound that Buffy had received that night had been revisited on the watchers. “I didn’t expect _that_ ,” Buffy said. 

“How else did you expect to know them?” Anyanka asked. “Even with the guilt part of the wish, someone really good at repressing it could sneak their way into staying in the organization. This way you have a mark of Cain to know your abusers. Though fun fact, Cain was really a stand up guy. Great fun at parties.”

“What’s happened?” Lydia asked, pulling on her bonds. “What did you do to my guards? What’s going on here?” The three guards who were bleeding were also crying, hunched over the table. 

“Wes, you want to handle this?” Buffy asked. “I just realized those who _didn’t_ do anything wrong will have no idea what _has_ been done wrong, so they’re gonna be really confused.” 

“Giles will have to inform these two,” Wesley said. “I must call my father.” 

“What if he’s marked, too?” Buffy asked. 

“Then he’ll hand over power to me fairly quickly,” he said grimly. 

“Actually, he’ll hand it to me,” Anyanka said. “Didn’t you get that? D’Hoffryn made me head of the Watchers’ Council. Just tell your father to call a meeting of the highest council members, and I’ll tell them how I want it restructured. I think something along the lines of a school,” she said. “And no more taking the girls from their parents, unless _they’re_ abusive or something. The slayers' parents should have their own position on the council, be part of the support team. And you need a real team, Buffy. Not just moral support, but a proper team to call on when you’re going into a fight, if you want one.” 

“How do you know all this?” Giles asked. “All the systems that need reworking?” 

“D’Hoffryn put it into my head while they were chanting. All the Watchers’ Council secret stuff. And oh, boy, it’s messed up. Buffy, we’re gonna be _months_ restructuring this thing. Years, maybe.” 

“A teenage girl?” Wesley asked. “The head of the Watchers’ Council?” 

“They send teenage girls out to kill their vampires for them,” Buffy said. “Who better than to head up their council? Besides, Anyanka is a thousand-year-old vengeance demon. I think she can manage a few sixty-year-old stuffed shirts. She knows how to wreak vengeance on killers.”

“Then I guess you’d best come with me as I make some phone calls,” Wesley said to her. “You are sure they’ll simply hand power over to you?” 

Anyanka gestured to the weeping, wounded thugs. “Does that answer your question?” she said. “All the mean ones will. It’ll be the good ones like you that’ll take convincing.” 

“Once the truth is out,” Wesley said, “for the good ones it won’t take any convincing at all.” 

***

Spike didn’t have anything to do with all the subsequent preparations. There were phone calls made, plans sorted, plane tickets ordered. He was starting to feel a bit of a fifth wheel. While Buffy was calling her mother to ask if she wanted to come to England with them for what was to be termed the New Council, Spike stood about in the living room where Travers’s followers, both the guilty and innocent, awaited their next orders from Anyanka. Their first order had been to cover up Travers’s death as natural. It was not the first time the Watchers had had to do such a thing. Lydia agreed to manage it after Giles had explained things, and now the late head of the Watchers’ Council was covered by a sheet in the dining room, awaiting disposal by the Watchers’ own resources.

Anyanka seemed in her element, making imperious demands on the telephone, talking about finances and morality clauses and stipends for the slayer herself. Buffy’s two watchers -- Giles had already been reinstated, and they were still negotiating his retroactive payment for his time in Sunnydale -- were making furious notes and arguing goodnaturedly over differences in account procedures. Larry and Oz had finally called it a day and gone back to check on their families, who were still jumpy from yesterday’s massacre. 

Spike was left alone. The only fun he’d had all morning was when Giles had explained to Lydia where Spike stood in all this. “And you’ve put yourself on her side? Didn’t you want to kill the slayer?” Lydia asked. “You’ve killed slayers before.”

“Heard of me, eh?” 

“The records Wyndam-Pryce has been reading. They were my research.” 

“Fun times,” Spike said with a wink, and Lydia blushed. Seemed he had a fan. She wasn’t the first. He wondered how many of the watchers were secretly really vampire aficionados, and what that would mean now the system was restructuring. 

The preparations went on for hours, and Spike finally wandered down the stairs to the basement. He cleaned up the ash and the burnt out candles. He grunted as he pushed the bed back into place, wrestling with his wounds. The raven cawed from its cage, and Spike went to check it out. Poor thing looked like it might have gotten a feather or two singed with all the rings of fire flaring about. 

Spike took it out and examined the wing feathers. They weren’t badly burned. The thing could probably still fly, if it had the opportunity. 

“How’s it going?” Buffy asked, limping down the stairs. “You disappeared.” 

Spike shrugged. “You seemed busy.” He looked up at her. “So. You’re free, now. Can live your own life.” 

“I’ll never be free,” Buffy said. “I’ll always be the slayer. But at least now I can decide what that means for myself.” She came up to pet the raven. It tried to peck her, because it wasn’t as if being held in captivity had made it tame. 

“And what does it mean for us?” Spike said. 

“Oh. Anyanka says I deserve a team of witches and fighters and marksmen and things I can call on to help with the slayage.”

“Okay.”

“I figured you’d be on it. If you wanted to be.” 

Spike thought about this. To be part of a team of goody-two-shoes whose goal in life was eradicating evil? It seemed absurd. “What if I wanted to go back out into the night and run rampant and murder the populace and gorge myself on their blood?” he asked. 

Buffy shrugged. “I’d give you a twenty-four hour head start.” She ran her fingers over the raven’s glossy back. “But I hope that’s not what you’ll do.” She looked up at him. “What _do_ you want to do?” 

Spike watched her pale hand contrasted against the black feathers. “Hang on a tick,” he said. He went to the basement window and wrestled it open, the old hinges creaking with dried paint as he hoisted it up. He bundled the raven out the narrow space and watched as it hopped a few feet, then flew up into the firmament, free. 

He turned back to Buffy. “Whatever you wish, my liege.”


	38. Epilogue

Buffy threw a punch, and found it blocked. Step, twist, throw another punch, and it was blocked again. “Good!” she said. “Very good.” Good enough that Buffy was going to have to show off a little. Her hair bounced behind her as she did a backwards handspring to avoid the next attack. 

Her opponent didn’t chase her, and instead stopped to stare in awe. “How do you _do_ that?” she groaned. 

Buffy grinned down at the twelve-year-old girl she was training. “You’ll be able to do it, too,” she said, “if you just keep practicing.” 

“Not like you can,” the girl said. 

“No, not yet,” Buffy said. “But if you get chosen, all these tricks you’re learning now will help to keep you alive for as long as possible.” She’d developed a little audience. All the girls in the junior class were watching and listening to her now. That tended to happen when she did public training at the academy. The potentials and the watchers-in-training all loved to watch her when she sparred. “And staying alive is?” 

“ _Staying alive is the goal,_ ” the girls around her chorused. 

“Exactly. You can’t kill a demon if you’re dead.” Buffy looked at the girls. There were only half a dozen of them in this age group, but there were more if you counted the watcher boys and girls, who’d had some physical fight training added to their schedules, one of Anyanka’s reforms. There were dozens more who were older. 

It turned out it was quite easy to start up a school for potential slayers. The watchers already had an academy in place for their own recruits, on an old estate near an isolated village in Devon. All they’d had to do was expand the classes to include the potentials, and make plans for a second dorm. Construction had already started on it. The classes were crowded now, as they were weeding out the abusive watchers and convincing the good ones to accept the new reforms, so there was a shortage of teachers, and a lot of extra students. The watchers had been forced to double up and have roommates until the new wing was completed. Once it was, they wouldn’t be so crowded, and hopefully no longer understaffed. 

Anyanka was good at hiring new staff. She had even, with Buffy’s permission, hired a few demons to work with them, normalizing the concept for the watchers and the potentials that not all demons are evil. Some are benign, and others can be controlled. It was a lesson that was eye-opening to most of the remaining watchers.

Watchers had been shipping their potentials to the academy almost from before it opened. Those who’d had their abuses beaten back at them were mostly all too willing to send the girls they had been training alone into someone else’s responsibility. Buffy had decided they needed no further punishment beyond being fired. She knew what they went through. It was enough. The good ones, who hadn’t known the truth about practices like the Cruciamentum or about the kind of “training” Carter had done, were wildly overworked, since part of their new duties included educating themselves on the horrors they hadn’t been privy to before, and deconstructing those very practices that had enabled them.

There had been some controversy about gathering all the potentials in one basket, as it were. Not only did some feel it left them vulnerable to a mass attack, but there was also some indication that the next slayer was chosen geographically, near some hotspot of vampire activity, and that having all the potentials in one place made the Powers’ choices limited. Anyanka was arranging for some of the older potentials, over sixteen, to form cohorts, and to take classes around the world like exchange students with a handful of watchers to watch over them. This meant if a vampire rose and the current slayer was killed, there would be pools of of-age potentials scattered around the globe for the Powers to choose from. But they were unlikely to choose the eleven and twelve-year-olds safely under training in Devon, far away from master vampire activity. 

In addition to the dorms, Anyanka was also constructing cabins, for those parents who wished to follow their students to the school. There weren’t many, most potential parents willing to send their children to an excellent pre-paid boarding school as long as regular holidays were permitted. Some potentials who hadn’t seen their parents in years wept as they were reunited, and were now allowed to tell their parents the truth about their training. Buffy knew how important that was, now that she had her own mother back on her side. Joyce was on the council now. She and Buffy had both decided to leave her father out of the loop, for the time being, but Buffy was glad to have her mom properly back in her life. Joyce said it was complicated leaving LA, but it was worth it to spend as much time as she could with her only daughter. 

It had been a little complicated leaving Sunnydale, too, but the hellmouth seemed to have calmed down after all the fuss. That much death could either activate the thing, or have a quelling effect on it, and it seemed to be sated for the moment. Larry and Oz, of course, were still there, ready to call in Buffy on a moment’s notice if anything bigger than a fledgeling started menacing the place. 

First Buffy had gone to the doctor with the legitimate explanation of “I was caught up by the mass shooter last night,” and gotten her hands set and her bullet removed. (Spike’s injuries had to make do with first aid, rest, and demonic healing, but he said he’d be okay with that, given enough time.) Then, all nicely bandaged up, Buffy had given the Watchers’ contact number to Alan Finch, telling him only to call when he couldn’t manage something demonic. She’d arranged to sublet Revello Drive, then taken her Kawasaki over for a small errand of her own. 

She drove up to a small bungalow near the railyard with a statuette of St. Francis of Assisi in the garden, and knocked on the door. Gabriella answered, and didn’t recognize Buffy at first, so crisp and clean and healthy she looked. Then the woman burst into tears and hugged Buffy so tightly she would have given a demon a run for its money. “You’re alive!” 

“I am, I’m alive. And I might not have been but for you and your husband.” She smiled as Manuel came in from the kitchen. “Thank you so much for your kindness. I’m leaving town now, and I know I can never repay you. But I wanted to give you these.” She handed Gabriella a piece of paper with three phone numbers on it. “These top two are my friends Oz and Larry. I’ve told them about you. If you have any problem with vampires, call them, they can be here within an hour. And this number will reach me,” she said. “I’ll be traveling around the world, but I will drop everything if you really need me. I will always, always owe you everything.” And then she added one more piece of paper. “And this is the title to my motorbike. I know you probably won’t use it, but I figured you could sell it or give it to your kids or something. Do whatever you want with it. It’s all I really have to give you. I _cannot_ thank you enough.” 

It was a tearful and heartfelt visit, but Buffy couldn’t bring herself to stay long. Remembering where she had been that night was not a happy memory, the Hernandezes’ kindness notwithstanding. She’d begged off a hearty meal by telling them, truthfully, that she already had a plane ticket to England, and she couldn’t be late.

They’d had to put Spike in a trunk to bring him with them, but he sighed and said it wasn’t the first time. He said he was more upset about having to put his beloved DeSoto into storage. But he couldn’t even drive it in England. In compensation, the moment they’d settled in at the Academy he’d tracked down a 1968 Triumph Herald convertible, jet black and sporty, and was fixing it up in the watchers’ underground garage. Buffy teased him about his taste in ugly cars. He spent hours in that dim garage, making the damn thing work. He said it kept him busy when they weren’t on a mission. He did do some training with the girls, too, but he didn’t have much stomach for it. His best role was actually to teach them that vampires were dangerous -- that even he was dangerous -- and to never trust them. Which was a fine line to walk when it was known throughout the academy that he was also Buffy’s lover. 

Fortunately, he and Buffy were often called off for actual missions, and were never regular teachers at the academy. They had a regular team of six now to go out with them if they needed them -- two witches from the coven, a munitions expert, and a sniper, as well as Spike and Buffy for heavy work. There were others they could call in for specialty missions. Sometimes either Wesley or Giles chose to go along for on-the-spot demon information, but they were often needed for training or management at the upper levels of the Academy. 

All in all it was a much nicer setup than anything Buffy had lived through until now. She had friends, family, mentors, mentees, and a very attentive lover. Okay, so that lover was a mass murdering demon with no soul, few compunctions, and absolutely no tact, but even though the thought of how many people he had killed did keep her up some nights, unlike some people she’d been forced to trust in her life, he had never really betrayed her. Even when he tried to kill her, it was because he’d believed that was what she wanted. And once upon a time, he’d been right. 

She didn’t want that anymore. She absolutely wanted to live.

Buffy finished demonstrating her moves for the students, and did a few more one on one sparring sessions. Then she’d put her sweat towel around her neck and headed off for her suite. 

She was one of the few people in the Academy who wasn’t tapped for space. Anyanka had insisted that the slayer deserved her privacy. Even Spike had been given his own bedroom next door to it, the windows papered over to protect him from the sun. He didn’t sleep in it much unless he and Buffy had been fighting. And they did fight, since they were both volatile, violent people, and could not always keep their tempers. So far they had always been able to make up once they’d cooled off. (And sometimes had sex before they cooled off, because damn, it was hot that way.) But they both needed privacy sometimes. 

He was in her suite now, borrowing her shower. His room didn’t have its own. She frowned at the grease-stained clothes he had left littering the floor by the door to the bathroom. Thank god the Academy had a cleaning staff. Buffy kicked them aside and knocked on the door. “You gonna be out soon? I need a shower.” 

“Just a tick!” Spike called out.

Spike had something mellow and lustful coming from the stereo, one of his old Leonard Cohen albums. Buffy had insisted he replace some of his lost music once they were settled in England, and while she had learned to endure plenty of punk rock in the last six months, she found Spike’s tastes actually varied a lot. She’d heard the Sex Pistols and the Dead Kennedys and the Pogues, but he also enjoyed folk music, and show tunes, and she’d even caught him listening to classical, dancing around the room as if conducting. 

They’d had crazy ballet sex that day. 

Buffy sat in her white armchair and leaned her head back, enjoying the feel of being home -- of having a home that was hers to be in. The guilt didn’t weigh on her so much anymore. The responsibility was still there -- eradicating the vampires and the demons and the forces of darkness was still her calling -- but she didn’t feel so much like one girl in all the world, on a straight path to her death. She was part of a team, a team whose goal was to get everyone out alive, and that felt more like being home than anywhere she had ever lived. 

A warm hand touched her cheek, and she opened her eyes to see Spike, his hair wet and curly, crouched down before her, completely naked. “Shower’s free?” she asked him. 

“Don’t shower.” 

“I’ve been exercising. I probably smell like a troll.” 

“You smell like a hot and fragrant slayer.” He leaned forward and nuzzled her cheek. “One I could positively devour.”

“Have you eaten?” Buffy asked. 

“Yes, the Akermans brought the blood from their latest slaughter this morning,” Spike said, referencing the local farmer the Watchers had enlisted to supply them with blood. Turned out they’d always kept a few vampires in captivity, so it wasn’t even a new practice. “We have a whole fridge of fresh pig’s blood.”

“Okay, just checking.” Spike had sounded like one of the girls, sarcastically saying, _Yes, Mother_ at her. 

“Worrier. Have I ever taken too much?”

Buffy remembered him feeding from her abdominal wound, long before she was sure he loved her. “Never.” Spike ran a finger down her hairline, his eyes fond. Buffy ran her fingers over his masculine white throat. “Is that a hint that you want a snack?” 

“Been two weeks,” he said. 

“We really shouldn’t keep doing this.” 

“Hey, you’ve got a regular doctor now, checks your platelets all the time.” He caressed his finger along her throat in return. “I’ll make you beg for it,” he cajoled. 

She leaned into his caress. “You feel warm.”

“Feel warmer once I’m tucked in beside you.” 

Buffy bit her lip, but it was coquettish more than actual hesitation. “Make me want it first?” she whispered. 

“Always,” he said. 

Buffy took the towel off her shoulders and let him lift her off the chair. As Cohen murmured about Joan of Arc making love to fire, the slayer let the vampire carry her to their bed. Spike caressed her as he lifted the tank top over her head, and then buried his face between her breasts, kissing at her breastbone, making her chest ache with pleasure. She lay her head back and hummed. 

“Someone’s all heated up,” he murmured against her skin. 

“Mm, I’m happy,” she said. 

Spike smiled down at her. “Glad to be of service.” He kissed down her abdomen until he got to her waistband, then kissed all along her skin there, making her giggle as his lips tickled her. Then he lowered her waistband a little, and kissed another line across her stomach, lower down. 

She had a massive scar on her abdomen still, and more scars from the fight with Xander, and Spike caressed them as he’d always caressed all her scars and injuries, taking ownership of them as much as he did the rest of her. He slid her leggings and underwear off, pausing to slip off her sneakers when he got to her feet. A cool breeze from the air conditioner made her skin rise in goose bumps as he left her. Then his shower-warm hands slipped up her legs, smoothing the ruffled flesh, and he arched over her, nuzzling her belly with his nose and lips, back up to her breasts, which he began nibbling and caressing, first one, then the other, dancing between them as if they were ice cream and he couldn’t decide which flavor he liked best. 

Buffy tangled her fingers into his pale curls, sinking under his attention, until the kisses grew stronger, and there were teeth in his nibbles. She glanced down. He’d let loose his fangs, holding her flesh softly between them, tracing along her skin until it tingled. 

“Not yet,” she told him teasingly, and he closed his yellow eyes, inwardly cursing her. She grinned and ran her finger down his nose, reaching her finger into his dangerous mouth, gently touching his teeth. “Get me off.” 

“Now?” 

“Yeah. With your fangs all driving me crazy.” 

Spike groaned -- she knew it was harder for him to keep the bloodlust at bay like this -- but obediently sank down to her pussy, softly opening it with his lips to lap at her clit, occasionally touching her with his teeth, but not biting down. Not yet. He hadn’t made her want it yet. 

She splayed her legs to give him full access, and he took full advantage of it, licking fast at her clit, then dipping deeper to lap at her core, his fangs making little lines of harshness to contrast the smoothness of his tongue. She wasn’t afraid he’d get bored. He had proved conclusively that the contents of her pussy were enough to keep him amused for hours. She hummed her pleasure and let her hips hump up into him, unashamed of her hunger, unafraid of his opinion. Finally it built, and then built higher, washing through her, and when she finally came it was with a smooth and unhurried finality, certain of Spike’s care for her. 

Spike licked up more of her juices and then looked up at her, pleading. “I want it, I want you, I want it,” he begged. 

Buffy smiled languidly. “Where do you want it?” she asked. He’d now bitten her in half a dozen different places, each of them more inventive than the last. His fangs left tiny, round circles which faded into her skin, leaving it almost unblemished. Almost. She didn’t mind. Scars were her birthright.

“I want your neck,” he said, going for tradition this afternoon. “God, I want your neck. I want your neck, I want your arms, I want your body, I want you.” 

Buffy hummed again, contentedly. 

“Do you want me?” he asked, his voice small and seductive. He still needed reassurance sometimes. Drusilla had really done a number on him. 

“I want you, Spike,” Buffy whispered. “I want you, I want you. I always want you.”

He arched over her, crawling like a panther up her body, his eyes sinful in their demonic lust. “Do you want it?” 

“Soon,” she whispered. “Come into me.” She lifted her hips to rub against his cock. It was not only bloodlust that filled his being. “I want you to come in me. I want to flow into you as you flow into me.”

“As you wish, my liege,” he whispered back. He kissed her and entered her at the same time, his hips moving in a smooth motion, his breath passing over her lips with each careful thrust. Buffy gasped, pleasure passing through her again, another orgasm building as he moved. 

“Tell me,” she whispered. 

“I love you, my goddess, my master, my slayer,” Spike breathed in her ear. 

“Tell me how you’ll do it,” she said. 

“First I’ll seduce you on the armchair,” Spike said, his voice low and husky. “I’ll tell you how much I want you, and you’ll tease me with it. Then I’ll carry you to the bed and kiss you and go down on you until you beg me to fuck you. Then you’ll tell me I can bite you, finally, and I’ll close my teeth in your soft, succulent flesh, and drink you down into me until you can’t even feel your own toes.” Buffy giggled softly. “Then I’ll lick you clean and let you go and you’ll curl up beside me, content and happy.”

“So, so happy,” Buffy said. “Do it. Please do it. Take me into you.”

A low growl passed through Spike’s demonic throat, and the fangs sank into her neck. He avoided the veins and arteries. The feel of his teeth in her flesh was enough to make her moan. As blood passed over his lips, his hips speeded, and he grunted desperately against her skin, holding her tight, pressed against each other, close inside and out, the power of his bite and the power of his cock contrasting her own power, a knot of twisted, dangerous pleasure, melded together on the bed. 

Buffy came again, the euphoria and the numbness spreading, and her arms went weak against the bedclothes. “Love you,” she whispered through the heat of it. “Love you, love….”

Spike held her, drinking from her for a few moments more, and then made himself pull away. She could tell it was a wrench for him -- it was always a wrench -- by the disappointed whimper in the back of his throat, but he kept himself in check for her, always. He let his fangs fade. “Love you,” he whispered back. 

Buffy could hardly keep her eyes open. “Fuck you, now I’m tired,” she complained in a little girl voice. 

Spike chuckled and tucked her neatly into the crook of his arm. “Then rest, love. I’ll be here.” 

“Love you,” she said again. 

“Love you, too.” 

Buffy dozed against his side, and he shifted and tossed the covers up over her sweat-cooling skin, kissing her hair, caressing her shoulder, curled up together like sleepy kittens. 

The light had shifted to early evening when someone knocked heavily on the door. “Go away,” Buffy murmured. “I’m dead.” 

“I don’t think _la petite mort_ counts when it comes to slayer lineage, pet,” Spike said. He grabbed a robe -- more to placate Buffy than for his own modesty -- and opened the door. “What is it?” 

“Sorry to bother you. There’s a report in Italy of some activity,” said the junior watcher at the door. “Apparently the Immortal is active again.” 

“The Immortal?” Spike looked behind him at Buffy, who was sitting up in the bed, holding the covers around her. “And this calls for the slayer?” 

“The local coven down there is adamant. They need help. The team has already been called, briefing is in two hours in the green conference room. Anyanka has booked you a flight for midnight.” 

“That’s fine. We’ll be right there,” Buffy said. 

“No hurry,” the messenger said, glancing at her. “Two hours, like I said, Miss Summers. Sir,” he added with a nod to Spike, and went on down the corridor. 

Spike shut the door and rolled his eyes. “This’ll be a picnic. You know he’s not just some common vampire, right?” 

“I don’t know anything about him,” Buffy said. “I guess we’ll find out at the briefing.” She tossed the blanket off her and smiled. “We’ll have to pass the time until then. Goodness, however shall we manage it?” She held her hand out to him, and he came back. “Any idea what the mission will be like?” 

“Time consuming,” Spike said as Buffy pulled him down with her. “The Immortal and I have history.” 

“Oh, that’ll be fun. I hope it doesn’t take us too long.” She stretched luxuriously on her bed beside her lover. “I have a life to get to.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who supported me through this, my COVID novel. I started writing it just as the call for social-distancing happened, and just after I had a severe case of what was probably COVID, but we didn’t have testing back then, so we can’t be sure. Hardly able to breathe, I could do nothing more strenuous than sit for months, and fortunately my muse took pity on me and said, “Okay, here, here’s an idea. Write a novel from it.” It has not outlasted the epidemic, but it did help to keep me (mentally) alive through it so far. You’ll have noticed it went to a few dark places along the way, but I hope I ended it satisfactorily, with Spuffy making sweet, sweet love to Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Love and Hate, which is such a damned Spuffy album it’s hard to believe. Because I’m feeling self-indulgent, here is a link to the referenced Joan of Arc from that album, which is this Buffy’s song if I ever heard one.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPf5Ki9ygVY
> 
> If anyone is curious about my head-canon for Angel in this story, he goes to LA with Drusilla and embraces evil. Wolfram and Hart do in fact resurrect Darla for him, and within a year Buffy and her crew have to go to LA and deal with them. But this is a sequel I currently have no plans to write, so just enjoy knowing that the story doesn’t end, and there’s plenty of action for our heroes in the unwritten future. 
> 
> Thank you to my betas Bewildered and EllieRose101, without whom this story WOULD NOT AT ALL EXIST! They helped not only with beta reads and edits, but with brainstorming sometimes for hours, and the very formation of the story itself. Honestly, sometimes I feel like they wrote it, and I was just along for the ride. (They assure me this is absolutely not the case, but you know, mutual love and all that.) 
> 
> Thanks to my good man, who, supportive as he is of my obsessions will never read this thank you because fanfic isn’t his thing, but he helped to form and even beta read several chapters where his knowledge of the circumstances was greater than mine, so you get the military action and some other scenes only because he was happy to indulge me. Also he underwent back surgery while I was writing this, and survived a MRSA infection, so I’m just thankful for him every day anyway. Everyone deserves their own Spike. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone in my chat group who listened to me chatter on about my current story, and thank you to all you wonderful readers who have kept me encouraged with your fine comments and unfailing support. 
> 
> Basically, thank you.


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